March 5

March 5 is the 64th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (65th in leap years). There are 301 days remaining.

Events

• 1046 – Naser Khosrow begins the seven-year Middle Eastern journey which he would later describe in his book Safarnameh.
• 1689 – Daniel Finch, 2nd Earl of Nottingham is named Secretary of State for the Northern Department.
• 1766 – Antonio de Ulloa, the first Spanish governor of Louisiana, arrives in New Orleans.
• 1770 – Boston Massacre: Five Americans, including Crispus Attucks, are killed by British troops in an event that would help start the American Revolutionary War five years later.
• 1784 – Thomas Townshend, 1st Viscount Sydney is named President of the Board of Trade.
• 1793 – French troops are defeated by Austrian forces and Liège is recaptured.
• 1821 – James Monroe is inaugurated for a second term as President of the United States.
• 1824 – First Burmese War: The British officially declares war on Burma.
• 1836 – Samuel Colt makes the first production-model revolver (.34-caliber).
• 1842 – Over 500 Mexican troops led by Rafael Vasquez invade Texas, briefly occupy San Antonio and then head back to the Rio Grande.
• 1848 – Louis Antoine Garnier-Pages named French minister of Finance.
• 1849 – Zachary Taylor is inaugurated as the 12th President of the United States.
• 1860 – Parma, Tuscany, Modena and Romagna vote in referenda to join Kingdom of Sardinia.
• 1861 – Montgomery Blair is named 23rd Postmaster General of the United States by Abraham Lincoln
• 1868 – A court of impeachment is organized in the United States Senate to hear charges against President Andrew Johnson.
• 1868 – Mefistofele, an opera by Arrigo Boito premieres at La Scala.
• 1872 – George Westinghouse patents the air brake.
• 1877 – Rutherford B. Hayes is publicly inaugurated as the 19th President of the United States (he was privately inaugurated on March 3).
• 1894 – Archibald Philip Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery becomes First Lord of the Treasury.
• 1904 – Nikola Tesla, in Electrical World and Engineer, describes the process of ball lightning formation.
• 1905 – Russian troops begin to retreat from Mukden, Manchuria after losing 100,000 troops in three days.
• 1907 – The second Duma opens in St. Petersburg, Russia and 40,000 demonstrators have to be dispersed by Russian troops.
• 1912 – Italian forces are the first to use airships for military purposes, using them for reconnaissance behind Turkish lines.
• 1915 – World War I: LZ 33, a zeppelin, is damaged by enemy fire and stranded south of Ostend.
• 1916 – Spanish football club Real Club Deportivo Mallorca founded.
• 1917 – Woodrow Wilson is inaugurated for a second term as President of the United States.
• 1918 – Bolshevist Russia moves the national capital from Petrograd to Moscow.
• 1924 – Shefqet Verlaci becomes Prime Minister of Albania.
• 1929 – LanChile airline begins operations.
• 1931 – Daniel Salamanca Urey named President of Bolivia.
• 1933 – Great Depression: President Franklin D. Roosevelt declares a "bank holiday", closing all United States banks and freezing all financial transactions.
• 1933 – In Germany, the Nazis win 44 percent of the vote in parliamentary elections.
• 1936 – First flight of fighter airplane Spitfire Type 300.
• 1940 – Members of Soviet politbiuro sign an order for the execution of 25,700 Polish intelligentsia, including 14,700 Polish POW, known also as Katyn massacre.
• 1943 – First flight of Gloster Meteor jet aircraft in Britain.
• 1946 – Winston Churchill uses the phrase "Iron Curtain" in his speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri.
• 1955 – President of Lithuania, Antanas Merkys dies, after having been imprisoned and deported to the Soviet Union.
• 1956 – Ernie Terrell becomes the WBA world heavyweight champion, beating Eddie Machen.
• 1958 – Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region is established.
• 1958 – Explorer 2 spacecraft launched.
• 1960 – Elvis Presley is discharged from the United States Army.
• 1963 – Country Singer Patsy Cline dies in a plane crash.
• 1966 – A BOAC Boeing 707 jet crashes on Mount Fuji, Japan killing 124
• 1966 – In Luxembourg, Udo Jürgens wins the eleventh Eurovision Song Contest for Austria.
• 1970 – A nuclear non-proliferation treaty goes into effect after ratification by 43 nations.
• 1970 – Dubnium atoms first detected conclusively.
• 1971 – First live performance of Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven."
• 1973 – Donald DeFreeze, future Symbionese Liberation Army leader, escapes from Vacaville Prison.
• 1974 – Yom Kippur War: Israeli forces withdrew from the west bank of the Suez Canal.
• 1978 – Landsat 3 is launched.
• 1979 – Detection equipment picks up a gamma ray burst originating from the Large Magellanic Cloud, leading to the discovery of soft gamma repeaters.
• 1981 – Cannibal Alferd Packer pardoned posthumously.
• 1982 – SNL star John Belushi dies of a drug overdose in his hotel room.
• 1982 – Venera 14, a Soviet satellite arrives at the planet Venus.
• 1985 – Body of undercover DEA agent Enrique Camarena found.
• 1988 – Constitution of Turks and Caicos Islands restored and revised.
• 1991 – Iraq releases all Gulf War prisoners
• 1993 – Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson is banned from international competition for life after testing positive for banned substances for the second time.
• 1998 – NASA announces that the Clementine probe orbiting the Moon has found enough water to support a human colony.
• 1998 – NASA announces the choice of United States Air Force Lt. Col. Eileen Collins as the first woman commander of a space shuttle mission.
• 1999 – Paul Okalik is elected first Premier of Nunavut.
• 2001 – In Mecca, 35 Muslim pilgrims are crushed to death during the annual Hajj pilgrimage.
• 2002 – MTV begins airing The Osbournes.
• 2003 – University of Manchester and UMIST announce agreement to merge operations.
• 2003 – Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks provokes controversy in the U.S. by stating that the band was "ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas."
• 2003 – Nature withdraws several papers as a result of the Jan Hendrik Schön scandal.

Births

• 1133 – King Henry II of England (d. 1189)
• 1324 – King David II of Scotland (d. 1371)
• 1512 – Gerardus Mercator, Flemish cartographer (d. 1594)
• 1563 – John Coke, English politician (d. 1644)
• 1575 – William Oughtred, English mathematician (d. 1660)
• 1658 – Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac, French explorer (d. 1730)
• 1693 – Johann Jakob Wettstein, German theologian (d. 1754)
• 1696 – Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Italian painter (d. 1770)
• 1748 – Jonas C. Dryander, Swedish botanist (d. 1810)
• 1748  – William Shield, English musician (d. 1829)
• 1750 – Jean-Baptiste Gaspard d'Ansse de Villoison, French classical scholar (d. 1805)
• 1814 – Wilhelm von Giesebrecht, German historian (d. 1889)
• 1815 – John Wentworth, U.S. politician (d. 1888)
• 1817 – Austen Henry Layard, English excavator of Nineveh (d. 1894)
• 1836 – Charles Goodnight, American cattle rancher (d. 1929)
• 1853 – Howard Pyle, American author and illustrator (d. 1911)
• 1867 – Louis-Alexandre Taschereau, Premier of Quebec (d. 1952)
• 1869 – Michael von Faulhaber, German cardinal and archbishop (d. 1952)
• 1870 – Frank Norris, American writer (d. 1902)
• 1871 – Rosa Luxemburg, German revolutionary (d. 1919)
• 1874 – Henry Travers, British actor (d. 1965)
• 1879 – William Beveridge, British economist (d. 1963)
• 1886 – Dong Biwu, founder of the Communist Party of China (d. 1975)
• 1887 – Heitor Villa-Lobos, Brazilian composer (d. 1959)
• 1897 – Madame Chiang Kai-Shek, Chinese political figure (d. 2003)
• 1898 – Zhou Enlai, Premier of the People's Republic of China (d. 1976)
• 1904 – Karl Rahner, German theologian (d. 1984)
• 1905 – Günther Lüders, actor and film director (d. 1975)
• 1908 – Rex Harrison, English actor (d. 1990)
• 1910 – Józef Marcinkiewicz, Polish mathematician (d. 1940)
• 1915 – Laurent Schwartz, French mathematician (d. 2002)
• 1918 – James Tobin, American economist (d. 2002)
• 1920 – Virginia Christine, American actress (d. 1996)
• 1921 – Elmer Valo, Major League Baseball player (d. 1998)
• 1922 – Pier Paolo Pasolini, Italian writer and film director (d. 1975)
• 1922 – James Noble, American actor
• 1923 – Laurence Tisch, American investor
• 1926 – Joan Shawlee, American actress (d. 1987)
• 1927 – Jack Cassidy, American actor (d. 1976)
• 1927 – Craig Hill, American actor
• 1934 – James B. Sikking, American actor
• 1936 – Dean Stockwell, American actor
• 1936 – Canaan Banana, President of Zimbabwe (d. 2003)
• 1937 – Olusegun Obasanjo, leader of Nigeria
• 1938 – Fred Williamson, American football player and actor
• 1939 – Pierre Wynants, Belgian chef
• 1939 – Samantha Eggar, British actress
• 1942 – Felipe González Márquez, Prime Minister of Spain
• 1943 – Billy Backus, boxer
• 1947 – Clodagh Rodgers, Northern Irish singer
• 1948 – Eddy Grant, singer
• 1951 – Elaine Paige, English singer, actress
• 1954 – Marsha Warfield, American actress, comedienne
• 1955 – Penn Jillette, American magician and comedian
• 1958 – Andy Gibb, English singer (d. 1988)
• 1959 – Vazgen Sargsyan, Prime Minister of Armenia (d. 1999)
• 1962 – Charlie and Craig Reed, Scottish singers (The Proclaimers)
• 1966 – Michael Irvin, American football player
• 1970 – John Frusciante, American musician (The Red Hot Chili Peppers)
• 1974 – Jens Jeremies, German football player
• 1974 – Kevin Connolly, American actor
• 1974 – Eva Mendes, American actress
• 1975 – Jolene Blalock, American actress
• 1975  – Niki Taylor, American fashion model
• 1976 – Sarunas Jasikevicius, Lithuanian basketball player
• 1977 – Wally Szczerbiak, NBA basketball player
• 1981 – Frances Ashton, supermodel
• 1989 – Jake Lloyd, American actor

Deaths

• 1534 – Antonio da Correggio, Italian painter (b. 1489)
• 1605 – Pope Clement VIII (b. 1536)
• 1611 – Shimazu Yoshihisa, Japanese daimyo and samurai (b. 1533)
• 1622 – Ranuccio Farnese I, Duke of Parma (b. 1569)
• 1726 – Evelyn Pierrepont, 1st Duke of Kingston-upon-Hull
• 1790 – Flora Macdonald, Jacobite heroine
• 1815 – Franz Mesmer, developer of hypnotism
• 1827 – Alessandro Volta, physicist
• 1827 – Pierre-Simon Laplace, French mathematician (b. 1659)
• 1829 – John Adams, last surviving Bounty mutineer
• 1849 – David Scott, painter
• 1876 – Marie d'Agoult, writer
• 1893 – Hippolyte Taine, French historian
• 1895 – Henry Rawlinson, soldier
• 1903 – George Francis Robert Henderson, soldier
• 1907 – Friedrich Blass, scholar
• 1926 – Clément Ader, French aviation pioneer (b. 1841)
• 1927 – Franz Mertens, mathematician
• 1940 – Cai Yuanpei, educator
• 1944 – Max Jacob, French poet and writer (b. 1876)
• 1953 – Sergei Prokofiev, Russian composer, (b. 1891)
• 1953 – Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union, (b. 1879)
• 1953 – Herman J. Mankiewicz, screenwriter
• 1963 – Patsy Cline and Cowboy Copas, country music singers
• 1965 – Chen Cheng, Chinese politician
• 1965 – Pepper Martin, baseball player
• 1966 – Anna Akhmatova, poet
• 1967 – Georges Vanier, Governor General of Canada
• 1974 – Sol Hurok, impresario
• 1974 – Billy De Wolfe, American actor, comedian
• 1980 – Jay Silverheels, actor
• 1980 – Winifred Wagner, Bayreuth Festival organizer
• 1981 – Yip Harburg, lyricist
• 1982 – John Belushi, actor, (b. 1949)
• 1984 – Tito Gobbi, Italian baritone (b. 1915)
• 1984 – William Powell, actor, (b. 1892)
• 1988 – Alberto Olmedo, comedian
• 1996 – Whit Bissell, American actor
• 1997 – Samm Sinclair Baker, coauthor of the Scarsdale Diet
• 1999 – Richard Kiley, actor
• 2003 – Hellmuth Buddenberg, entrepreneur

Holidays and observances

• St Piran's Day – Cornwall's national day
• Feast of St. Kieran, patron of the Diocese of Ossory, in Irish calendar
• Approximate beginning of month of jīngzhé in Chinese calendar

External links

• BBC: On This Day

March 4 – March 6 – February 5 – April 5 — listing of all days