March 5

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

Events

Up to 1900

• 1046 – Naser Khosrow begins the seven-year Middle Eastern journey which he would later describe in his book Safarnameh.
• 1279 – The Livonian Order is defeated in the Battle of Aizkraukle by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
• 1496 – England King Henry VII issued letters patern to John Cabot and his sons, authorizing them to discover of unknown lands.
• 1616 – Nicolaus Copernicus' book De revolutionibus orbium coelestium is banned by the Roman Catholic Church.
• 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.
• 1811 – Peninsular War: A French force under command of Marshal Victor is heavily defeated while trying to prevent an English-Spanish-Portuguese army from ending the Siege of Cadiz in the Battle of Barrosa.
• 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.
• 1850 – The Britannia Bridge, a railway bridge, linking the Isle of Anglesey to mainland Wales across the Menai Strait, opens.
• 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).
• 1878 – Manchester United Football Club is founded under the name of Newton Heath LYR FC.
• 1888 – Samuel Teleki and Ludwig von Hoehnal reach Lake Rudolf, present-day Lake Turkana in the Great Rift Valley. It lies in what is now Kenya.
• 1894 – Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery becomes First Lord of the Treasury.

1901 - 1950

• 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.
• 1916 – Off Santos, Brazil, Spanish luxury liner Principe de Asturias hits a rock and sinks within five minutes, killing 445 people.
• 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.
• 1919 – The main railway station in Helsinki opens.
• 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 22000 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.
• 1946 – The Hungarian Communists and Social Democrats co-found the left bloc.
• 1948 – US rocket flies a record 4800 km/h to 126 km height.
• 1949 – The Jharkhand Party is founded in India.

1951 - 2000

• 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 – Alberto Korda takes the famous "Guerrillero Heroico" photograph of Che Guevara.
• 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