August 5

August 5 is the 217th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (218th in leap years), with 148 days remaining.

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Events

• 642 – Battle of Maserfeld – Penda of Mercia defeats and kills Oswald of Bernicia
• 1100 – Henry I crowned King of England in Westminster Abbey
• 1305 – William Wallace, who led Scottish resistance to England, was captured by the English near Glasgow and transported to London for trial and execution.
• 1583 – Sir Humphrey Gilbert establishes first English colony in North America, at what is now St John's, Newfoundland.
• 1689 – 1,500 Iroquois attack village of Lachine, in New France.
• 1763 – Pontiac's War – Battle of Bushy Run – British forces led by Henry Bouquet defeat Chief Pontiac's Indians at Bushy Run.
• 1772 – First Partition of Poland begins.
• 1812 – War of 1812: Tecumseh's Indian force ambushes Thomas Van Horne's 200 Americans at Brownstone Creek, causing them to flee and retreat.
• 1858 – Cyrus West Field and others complete the first transatlantic telegraph cable after several unsuccessful attempts. It operated for less than a month.
• 1860 – Carl IV of Sweden-Norway is crowned king of Norway, in Trondheim.
• 1861 – American Civil War: In order to help pay for the war effort, the United States government issues the first income tax as part of the Revenue Act of 1861 (3% of all incomes over US $800; rescinded in 1872).
• 1862 – American Civil War: Battle of Baton Rouge – Along the Mississippi River near Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Confederate troops drive Union forces back into the city.
• 1864 – American Civil War: Battle of Mobile Bay begins – At Mobile Bay near Mobile, Alabama, Admiral David Farragut leads a Union flotilla through Confederate defenses and seals one of the last major Southern ports.
• 1882 – Standard Oil of New Jersey is established.
• 1884 – The cornerstone for the Statue of Liberty is laid on Bedloe's Island in New York Harbor.
• 1914 – In Cleveland, Ohio, the first electric traffic light is installed.
• 1944 – Holocaust: Polish insurgents liberate a German labor camp in Warsaw, freeing 348 Jewish prisoners.
• 1949 – In Ecuador an earthquake destroys 50 towns and kills more than 6000.
• 1960 – Burkina Faso, then known as "Upper Volta", became independent from France
• 1962 – Film actress and sex icon, Marilyn Monroe is found dead in her Los Angeles, California home after apparently overdosing on sleeping pills.
• 1963 – United States, United Kingdom, and Soviet Union sign a nuclear test ban treaty.
• 1964 – Vietnam War: Operation Pierce Arrow – American aircraft from carriers USS Ticonderoga and USS Constellation bomb North Vietnam in retaliation for strikes attacked US destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin.
• 1969 – Mariner program: Mariner 7 makes its closest fly-by of Mars (3,524 kilometers).
• Vietnam War: The U.S. Congress places a $1 billion dollar limit on 1974 military aid to South Vietnam.
• 1981 – Ronald Reagan fires 11,359 striking air-traffic controllers who ignored his order for them to return to work.

Births

• 1641 – John Hathorne, magistrate (d. 1717)
• 1802 – Niels Henrik Abel, Norwegian mathematician
• 1811 – Thomas Ambroise, composer (d. 1896)
• 1813 – Ivar Aasen, Norwegian poet and the inventor of Nynorsk
• 1842 – Ferdinand Keller, painter (d. 1922)
• 1850 – Guy de Maupassant, author (d. 1893)
• 1862 – Joseph Merrick, deformed celebrity (d. 1890)
• 1866 – Carl Harries, chemist (d. 1923)
• 1877 – Tom Thomson, painter (d. 1917)
• 1889 – Conrad Aiken, American writer (d. 1973)
• 1890 – Erich Kleiber, conductor (d. 1956)
• 1906:
  • John Huston, director (d. 1987)
  • Wassily Leontief, economist (d. 1999)
• 1908 – Harold Holt, seventeenth Prime Minister of Australia (d. 1967)
• 1911 – Robert Taylor, actor (d. 1969)
• 1930 – Neil Armstrong, astronaut
• 1935 – John Saxon, actor
• 1937 – Herb Brooks, ice hockey coach (d. 2003)
• 1939 – Princess Irene of the Netherlands
• 1940 – Roman Gabriel, professional football player
• 1943 – Nelson Briles, Major League Baseball player (d. 2005)
• 1946:
  • Loni Anderson, actress
  • Jimmy Webb, composer, musician
• 1947 – Rick Derringer, rock and roll musician
• 1951 – Airto Moreira, Brazilian percussionist
• 1953 – Rick Mahler, Major League Baseball player (d. 2005)
• 1956 – Maureen McCormick, actress, The Brady Bunch
• 1961 – Clayton Rohner, actor
• 1962 – Patrick Ewing, basketball player
• 1964 – Adam Yauch, musician
• 1971 – Jeff Somers, author
• 1975 – Kajol Mukherjee, actress
• 1977 – Mark Mulder, baseball pitcher
• 1981:
  • Carl Crawford, Major League Baseball player
  • Rachel Scott, victim of the Columbine High School massacre (d. 1999)
  • Kō Shibasaki, Japanese singer and actress
• 1983 – Sararu Mihai Emanuel, pornstar
• 1987 – Ben Lemke, student. Inventor of the Jet Force Propulsion Unit

Deaths

• 882 – King Louis III of France
• 1633 – Archbishop George Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury (b. 1562)
• 1895 – Friedrich Engels, socialist philosopher
• 1923 – Vatroslav Jagic Croatian slavist (b. 1835)
• 1929 – Millicent Fawcett, British suffragist and feminist (b. 1847)
• 1955 – Carmen Miranda, actress, singer
• 1960 – Arthur Meighen, ninth Prime Minister of Canada
• 1962 – Marilyn Monroe, American actress
• 1984 – Richard Burton, British actor
• 1991 – Paul Brown, Pro Football Hall of Fame coach (b. 1908)
• 2000 – Sir Alec Guinness, 86, British actor
• 2002 – Josh Ryan Evans, actor (b. 1982)
• 2002  – Chick Hearn, pro-basketball announcer

Holidays and observances

• Burkina Faso – Independence Day
• Croatia – Victory day and National Thanksgiving Day

External links

• BBC: On This Day

August 4 – August 6 – July 5 – September 5 — listing of all days