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 upto 18th century 1046 - Naser Khosrow begins his "itinerary" which he would later describe in Safarnameh. 1689 - Daniel Finch, 2nd Earl of Nottingham 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, killed by British troops in an event that would help start the American Revolutionary War five years later. 1784 - Thomas Townshend, 1st Viscount Sydney named President of the Board of Trade in its second iteration. 1793 - French troops are defeated by Austrian forces and Liege is recaptured. 19th century 1821 - James Monroe is inaugurated for a second term as President of the United States. 1824 - First Burmese War: The British officially declare 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. This is the first such invasion since the Texas revolution. 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 voted in referenda to join Kingdom of Sardinia. 1861 - Montgomery Blair named 23rd Postmaster General of the United States by Abraham Lincoln 1867 - Little River County, Arkansas organized in the United States. 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. 20th century 1900s-1920s 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 is opened in St. Petersburg, Russia and 40,000 demonstrators had to be dispersed by Russian troops. 1912 - Italian forces are the first to use airships for a military purpose by using them for reconnaissance west of Tripoli behind Turkish lines. 1915 - World War I: LZ 33, a zeppelin, is damaged by enemy fire during a patrol mission; it 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 - The Soviet Union moves the national capital from Petrograd to Moscow. 1924 - Shefqet Verlaci becomes Prime Minister of Albania. 1929 - LanChile airline begins operations. 1930s-1950s 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 aircraft in Britain. 1946 - Winston Churchill names the Iron Curtain in his speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri. This event is often regarded at the beginning of the Cold War. 1955 - President of Lithuania, Antanas Merkys dies, after having been imprisoned and deported to Saratov, Soviet Union. 1956 - Ernie Terrell becomes the WBA world heavyweight champion, beating Eddie Machen by a 15-round decision, in Chicago. 1958 - Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region is established. 1958 - Explorer 2, part of the Explorer program, launched and eventually failed. 1960s-1980s 1960 - Elvis Presley is discharged from the United States Army. 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 singing "Merci, cherie" (Thanks, babe). 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 Soledad State Prison 1974 - Yom Kippur War: Israeli forces withdrew from the west bank of the Suez Canal. 1978 - Landsat 3 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 - Actor and SNL star John Belushi dies of a drug overdose in his hotel room at the Chateau Marmont on Sunset Boulevard. 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. 1990s 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 announced that that the Clementine probe orbiting the Moon had found enough water in polar craters to support a human colony and rocket fueling station. 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 elected first Premier of Nunavut. 21st century 2001 - 35 Muslim pilgrims 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 withdrew several papers as a result of the Jan Hendrik Schön scandal. 2004 - A three-headed frog is found in Weston-super-Mare, England. Births upto 18th century 1133 - King Henry II of England, (d. 1189) 1324 - King David II of Scotland, (d. 1371) 1512 - Gerardus Mercator, cartographer, (d. 1594) 1563 - John Coke, English politician, (d. 1644) 1575 - William Oughtred, English mathematician 1658 - Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac, explorer, (d. 1730) 1693 - Johann Jakob Wettstein, theologian, (d. 1754) 1696 - Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, painter, (d. 1770) 1748 - Jonas C. Dryander, botanist, (d. 1810) 1748 - William Shield, musician, (d. 1829) 1750 - Jean-Baptiste Gaspard d'Ansse de Villoison, classical scholar, (d. 1805) 19th century 1814 - Wilhelm von Giesebrecht, historian, (d. 1889) 1815 - John Wentworth, U.S. politician, (d. 1888) 1817 - Austen Henry Layard, excavator of Nineveh, (d. 1894) 1836 - Charles Goodnight, cowboy, (d. 1929) 1851 - Václav Brožík, artist 1867 - Louis-Alexandre Taschereau, Premier of Quebec 1869 - Michael von Faulhaber, cardinal and archbishop, (d. 1952) 1870 - Frank Norris, writer 1871 - Rosa Luxemburg, revolutionary 1879 - William Beveridge, economist 1886 - Dong Biwu, a founder of the Communist Party of China 1887 - Heitor Villa-Lobos, Brazilian composer 1897 - Madame Chiang Kai-Shek, Chinese political figure, (d. 2003) 1898 - Zhou Enlai, Premier of the People's Republic of China (d. 1976) 20th century 1904 - Karl Rahner, theologian 1905 - Günther Lüders, actor and film director, (d. 1975) 1908 - Rex Harrison, actor 1910 - Józef Marcinkiewicz, mathematician 1915 - Laurent Schwartz, mathematician 1918 - James Tobin, economist 1922 - Pier Paolo Pasolini, writer, film director 1933 - Samantha Eggar, actress 1936 - Dean Stockwell, actor 1938 - Fred Williamson, American football star and actor 1942 - Felipe González Márquez, Prime Minister of Spain 1943 - Billy Backus, boxer 1947 - Clodagh Rodgers, Northern Irish singer 1951 - Elaine Paige, singer, actress 1955 - Penn Jillette, magician, comedian 1958 - Andy Gibb, singer (d. 1988) 1966 - Michael Irvin, American football player 1970 - John Frusciante, musician ("The Red Hot Chili Peppers") 1974 - Jens Jeremies, German international football player 1975 - Jolene Blalock, actress (Star Trek: Enterprise) 1975 - Niki Taylor, fashion model 1976 - Sarunas Jasikevicius, Lithuanian basketball player 1977 - Wally Szczerbiak, NBA basketball player Deaths upto 19th century 1605 - Pope Clement VIII 1611 - Shimazu Yoshihisa, Japanese daimyo and samurai (b. 1533) 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, mathematician 1829 - John Adams, last surviving Bounty mutineer 1849 - David Scott, painter 1876 - Marie d'Agoult, writer 1893 - Hippolyte Taine, historian 1895 - Henry Rawlinson, soldier 20th century 1903 - George Francis Robert Henderson, soldier 1907 - Friedrich Blass, scholar 1926 - Clément Ader, engineer 1927 - Franz Mertens, mathematician 1940 - Cai Yuanpei, educator 1944 - Max Jacob, poet and writer 1953 - Sergei Prokofiev, 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 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 1997 - Samm Sinclair Baker, coauthor of the Scarsdale Diet 1999 - Richard Kiley, actor 21st century 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 March 4 - March 6 - February 5 - April 5 -- listing of all days FAVORITE ARTICLES: History of the World    History of the United States    History of Europe    Ancient History    History    Military History    World War I    Bombing of Dresden    California    US Constitution    Frank Sinatra    Boston    Marbury v. 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