March 5
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- 1046 - Naser Khosrow begins the seven-year Middle Eastern journey which he would later describe in his book Safarnameh.
- 1496 - England King Henry VII issued letters patern to John Cabot and his sons, authorizing them to discover of unknown lands
- 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 is 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 - The "Stars and Bars" is adopted as the flag of the Confederate States of America.
- 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 is 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.
- 1948 - US rocket flies a record 4800 km/h to 126 km height.
- 1949 - The Jharkhand Party is founded in India.
- 1953 - Both Josef Stalin and Sergei Prokofiev die in Soviet Union.
- 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.
- 1956 - "King Kong" first televised.
- 1958 - Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region is established.
- 1958 - Explorer 2 spacecraft launches, fails to reach Earth orbit.
- 1960 - Elvis Presley is discharged from a 2-year hitch in the United States Army.
- 1963 - Country singer Patsy Cline dies in a plane crash.
- 1964 - Atlanta Mayor Ivan Allen Jr announces a baseball team is moving there.
- 1964 - Ceylon declares emergency crisis due to unrest.
- 1965 - First performance of Walter Piston's Eighth Symphony.
- 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.
- 1966 - Bob Seagren vaults 5.19m, an indoor world record.
- 1968 - US launches Solar Explorer B, aka Explorer 37 from Wallops Island to study the Sun.
- 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.
- 1974 - "Candide", by Leonard Bernstein, opens at Broadway Theatre in NYC for 740 performances.
- 1976 - British pound falls below $2 US for the first time.
- 1978 - Landsat 3 is launched from Vandenberg AFB in California.
- 1979 - Detection equipment picks up a gamma ray burst originating from the Large Magellanic Cloud, leading to the discovery of soft gamma repeaters.
- 1979 - Voyager 1's closest approach to Jupiter, 172000 miles.
- 1980 - Earth satellites record gamma rays from remnants of supernova N-49.
- 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.
- 1983 - Bob Hawke becomes Australian prime minister after defeating Malcolm Fraser in Australian elections.
- 1985 - The body of undercover DEA agent Enrique Camarena is 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.
- 2001 - In Santee, California, a school massacre occurs at Santana High School, leaving 2 dead and 15 wounded.
- 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.
