June 5

June 5 is the 156th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (157th in leap years), with 209 days remaining.

Events

• 1305 – Pope Clement V elected
• 1783 – The Montgolfier brothers publicly demonstrate their montgolfière (hot air balloon).
• 1798  – Battle of New Ross, attempt to spread United Irish Rebellion into Munster defeated.
• 1817 – First Great Lakes steamer, the Frontenac, is launched.
• 1829 – HMS Pickle captures the armed slave ship Voladora off the coast of Cuba.
• 1837 – Houston, Texas is granted a city charter.
• 1849 – Denmark becomes a constitutional monarchy by the signing of a new constitution.
• 1851 – Harriet Beecher Stowe's anti-slavery serial, Uncle Tom's Cabin or, Life Among the Lowly starts a ten-month run in the National Era abolitionist newspaper.
• 1864 – American Civil War: Battle of Piedmont – Union forces under General David Hunter defeat a Confederate army at Piedmont, Virginia, taking nearly 1,000 prisoners.
• 1900 – Boer War: British soldiers take Pretoria, South Africa.
• 1907 – BAPS Swaminarayan religion established.
• 1916 – Stein's Dixie Jass Band plays its first gig under its new name, the Original Dixieland Jass Band.
• 1916  – Louis Brandeis is sworn in as a Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
• 1917 – World War I: Conscription begins in the United States as "Army registration day."
• 1924 – Ernst Alexanderson sends the first facsimile across the Atlantic Ocean (to his father in Sweden).
• 1933 – The U.S. Congress abrogates the United States' use of the gold standard by enacting a joint resolution (48 Stat. 112) nullifying the right of creditors to demand payment in gold.
• 1944 – World War II: More than 1000 British bombers drop 5000 tons of bombs on German gun batteries on the Normandy coast in preparation for D-Day.
• 1945 – Allied Control Council, military occupation governing body of Germany, formally takes power.
• 1946 – A fire in the LaSalle Hotel in Chicago kills 61 people.
• 1947 – Marshall Plan: At a speech at Harvard University, United States Secretary of State George Marshall calls for economic aid to war-torn Europe.
• 1954 – The last new episode of the comic variety program, Your Show of Shows, airs.
• 1956 – Elvis Presley introduces his new single, Hound Dog, on The Milton Berle Show, scandalizing the audience with his suggestive hip movements.
• 1959 – The first government of the State of Singapore is sworn in.
• 1963 – British Secretary of State for War John Profumo resigns in a sex scandal.
• 1967 – Six-Day War begins: The Israeli air force launches simultaneous attacks on the air forces of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria.
• 1968 – U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy is shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California by Sirhan Sirhan. (He died on June 6).
• 1970 – Chile becomes a member of the Berne Convention copyright treaty.
• 1975 – The Suez Canal opens for the first time since the Six-Day War.
• 1976 – Collapse of the Teton Dam in Idaho.
• 1977 – A coup takes place in Seychelles.
• 1977  – The Apple II, the first practical personal computer, goes on sale.
• 1981 – The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that five homosexual men in Los Angeles, California have a rare form of pneumonia seen only in patients with weakened immune systems (these were the first recognized cases of AIDS).
• 1984 – Prime Minister of India Indira Gandhi orders an attack on the Golden Temple, the Sikh holy spot.
• 1986 – A 52-year old man in Auburn, Washington dies after taking an Excedrin capsule laced with cyanide; this is the first of two Excedrin deaths.
• 1987 – Ted Koppel hosts a "National Town Meeting on AIDS" on a special 4-hour long live broadcast of Nightline.
• 1989 – The Unknown Rebel halts the progress of a column of advancing tanks for over half an hour after the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989
• 1991 – Colo-Colo becomes the first chilean soccer team to win the Copa Libertadores de América.
• 1992 – Patriot Games opens in theaters, starring Harrison Ford.
• 1995 – Bose-Einstein condensate is first created.
• 1998 – A strike begins at the General Motors parts factory in Flint, Michigan that quickly spreads to five other assembly plants (the strike lasted seven weeks).
• 1998 – Both Reuters and ABC news erroneously report the death of comedian Bob Hope after Arizona congressman Bob Stump announces the demise of Hope on the floor of the US Congress.
• 2001 – Senator Jim Jeffords leaves the Republican party, an act which changes control of the United States Senate from the Republican party to the Democratic party.
• 2002 – Elizabeth Smart is kidnapped from her Salt Lake City, Utah home.
• 2002 – Mozilla 1.0, the first 'official' version, is released.
• 2004 – Smarty Jones loses at the Belmont Stakes to Birdstone and fails to bid the Triple Crown.

Births

• 1341 – Edmund of Langley, a younger son of King Edward III of England (d. 1402)
• 1606 – Pierre Corneille, French playwright d. 1684)
• 1718 – Thomas Chippendale, English furniture maker (d. 1779)
• 1723 – Adam Smith, Scottish economist (d. 1790)
• 1757 – Pierre Jean George Cabanis, French physiologist (d. 1808)
• 1771 – King Ernest I of Hanover (d. 1851)
• 1781 – Christian August Lobeck, German classical scholar (d. 1860)
• 1819 – John Couch Adams, English mathematician and astronomer (d. 1892)
• 1850 – Pat Garrett, American Western lawman (d. 1908)
• 1876 – Tony Jackson, American musician (d. 1920)
• 1879 – Robert Mayer, philanthropist (d. 1985)
• 1883 – John Maynard Keynes, English economist (d. 1946)
• 1884 – Ralph Benatzky, composer (d. 1957)
• 1887 – Pancho Villa, Mexican revolutionary (d. 1923)
• 1894 – Roy Thomson, Lord Thomson of Fleet, English publisher(d. 1976)
• 1895 – William Boyd, American actor (d. 1972)
• 1898 – Federico García Lorca, Spanish lyricist and dramatist (d. 1936)
• 1912 – Josef Neckermann, entrepreneur and dressage equestrian (d. 1992)
• 1919 – Richard Scarry, children's author (d. 1994)
• 1925 – Art Donovan, American football star
• 1925  – Boy Gobert, actor (d. 1986)
• 1928 – Robert Lansing, actor (d. 1994)
• 1928  – Tony Richardson, British actor (d. 1991)
• 1931 – Jacques Demy, French playwright
• 1932 – Christy Brown, author (d. 1981)
• 1934 – Bill Moyers, American journalist
• 1938 – Karin Balzer, East German hurdler
• 1939 – Joe Clark, sixteenth Prime Minister of Canada
• 1939  – Margaret Drabble, English novelist
• 1941 – Martha Argerich, Argentine pianist
• 1941  – Spalding Gray, American actor, screenwriter, and monologue artist (d. 2004)
• 1944 – Tommie Smith, American athlete
• 1947 – Laurie Anderson, American performance artist, actress, composer
• 1949 – Ken Follett, Welsh author
• 1954 – Nicko McBrain, English musician (Iron Maiden)
• 1962 – Princess Astrid of Belgium
• 1967 – Joe DeLoach, American athlete
• 1970 – Martin Gelinas, Canadian ice hockey player
• 1971 – Mark Wahlberg ("Marky Mark"), American singer, actor
• 1972 – Mike Bucci (Nova, Simon Dean), American professional wrestler
• 1979 – David Bisbal, Spanish singer

Deaths

• 535 – Epiphanius of Constantinople, patriarch of Constantinople
• 1118 – Robert de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Leicester
• 1296 – Edmund Crouchback, 1st Earl of Lancaster (b. 1245)
• 1316 – King Louis X of France (b. 1289)
• 1625 – Orlando Gibbons, English composer (b. 1583)
• 1900 – Stephen Crane, American author (b. 1871)
• 1910 – O. Henry, American author (b. 1862)
• 1913 – Chris von der Ahe, baseball pioneer (b. 1851)
• 1916 – Horatio Kitchener, Lord Kitchener, British field marshal (b. 1850)
• 1920 – Rhoda Broughton, Welsh author (b. 1840)
• 1921 – Georges Feydeau, French playwright (b. 1862)
• 1930 – Pascin, Bulgarian painter (b. 1885)
• 1942 – Samuel Adams, American naval officer (b. 1912)
• 1975 – Paul Keres, Estonian chess player (b. 1916)
• 1979 – Heinz Erhardt, German comedian (b. 1909)
• 1993 – Conway Twitty, American country musician (b. 1933)
• 1998 – Jeanette Nolan, actress
• 1998 – Sam Yorty, Mayor of Los Angeles (b.1909)
• 1999 – Mel Tormé, American singer, composer, and actor (b. 1925)
• 2002 – Gwen Plumb, Australian stage and television actress.
• 2002 – Dee Dee Ramone, American musician, bassist with The Ramones (b. September 18, 1952)
• 2003 – Jürgen Möllemann, German politician (b. 1945)
• 2004 – Ronald Reagan, President of the United States (b. 1911)

Holidays and observances

• National holiday of Denmark (Constitution Day)
• Seychelles – Liberation Day
• Feast of Saint Boniface
• Bahá'í Faith – Feast of Núr (Light) – First day of the fifth month of the Bahá'í Calendar

External links

• BBC: On This Day

June 4 – June 6 – May 5 – July 5 — listing of all days