February 5 is the 36th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. There are 329 days remaining (330 in leap years).
Events
- 1576 - Henry of Navarre converts to Roman Catholicism in order to ensure his right to the throne of France.
- 1631 - Roger Williams emigrates to Boston.
- 1778 - South Carolina becomes the first state to ratify the Articles of Confederation.
- 1782 - Spanish defeat British forces and capture Minorca.
- 1846 - The Oregon Spectator becomes the first newspaper on the Pacific coast of the United States.
- 1859 - Wallachia and Moldavia are united under Alexander John Cuza under the name Romania (see December 1 1918 for the final unification, Transylvania and other regions were still missing at this time).
- 1881 - Phoenix, Arizona is incorporated.
- 1885 - King Léopold II of Belgium establishes the Congo as a personal possession.
- 1917 - The current constitution of Mexico is adopted, establishing a federal republic with powers separated into independent executive, legislative, and judicial branches.
- 1917 - The Congress of the United States passes a law, over President Woodrow Wilson's veto, banning most Asian immigration to the United States.
- 1919 - Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and D.W. Griffith launch United Artists.
- 1922 - DeWitt and Lila Wallace publish the first issue of Reader's Digest. (Some sources say February 7.)
- 1924 - The Royal Greenwich Observatory begin broadcasting the hourly time signals known as the Greenwich Time Signal or the "BBC pips".
- 1929 - "They'll Do It Every Time", a comic strip still in syndication as of 2005, debuts in a San Francisco newspaper.
- 1936 - Charlie Chaplin releases the last ever silent movie, Modern Times.
- 1937 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposes a plan to enlarge the Supreme Court of the United States.
- 1945 - World War II: General Douglas MacArthur returns to Manila.
- 1946 - The Chondoist Chongu Party is founded in North Korea.
- 1953 - The movie Peter Pan premieres at the Roxy Theatre in New York City.
- 1958 - Gamel Abdel Nasser is nominated to be the first president of the United Arab Republic.
- 1958 - A hydrogen bomb known as the Tybee Bomb is lost by the US Air Force off the coast of Savannah, Georgia, never to be recovered.
- 1961 - The Sunday Telegraph publishes its first issue.
- 1962 - French President Charles De Gaulle calls for allowing Algeria to be an independent nation.
- 1968 - The Battle of Khe Sanh of the Vietnam War begins.
- 1971 - Apollo 14 lands on the Moon.
- 1972 - Bob Douglas becomes the first African American elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame.
- 1974 - John Murtha becomes the first Vietnam War veteran elected to the Congress of the United States.
- 1978 - The Blizzard of 1978, one of the worst Nor'easters ever to hit New England, forms.
- 1988 - Manuel Noriega is indicted on drug smuggling and money laundering charges.
- 1988 - Comic Relief hold the first "Red Nose Day", which raises £15 million in the United Kingdom for charity.
- 1991 - A Michigan court bars Dr. Jack Kevorkian from assisting in suicides.
- 1994 - Byron De La Beckwith is convicted of the 1963 murder of civil rights leader Medgar Evers.
- 1997 - The so-called Big Three banks in Switzerland announce the creation of a $71 million fund to aid Holocaust survivors and their families.
- 1997 - Morgan Stanley and Dean Witter investment banks announce a $10 billion merger.
- 1999 - Mike Tyson is sentenced to a year's imprisonment for the August 31, 1998 assault on two people.
- 2001 - Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman announce that they have separated.
- 2003 - U.S. plan to invade Iraq: Colin Powell addresses the UN Security Council on Iraq.
- 2004 - Twenty-three Chinese people drown when a group of 35 cockle-pickers are trapped by rising tides in Morecambe Bay, England. Twenty-one bodies are recovered.
- 2004 - Rebels from the Revolutionary Artibonite Resistance Front capture the city of Gonaïves, starting the 2004 Haiti rebellion.
Births
- 976 - Sanjo, Emperor of Japan (d. 1017)
- 1505 - Aegidius Tschudi, Swiss historian (d. 1572)
- 1519 - René of Châlon, Prince of the House of Orange (d. 1544)
- 1534 - Giovanni de' Bardi, Italian writer, composer, and soldier (d. 1612)
- 1589 - Esteban Manuel de Villegas, Spanish poet (d. 1669)
- 1626 - Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de Sévigné, French author (d. 1696)
- 1650 - Anne-Jules, 2nd duc de Noailles, French general (d. 1708)
- 1703 - Gilbert Tennent, Irish-born religious leader (d. 1764)
- 1725 - James Otis, American lawyer and patriot (d. 1783)
- 1788 - Robert Peel, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1850)
- 1795 - Wilhelm Karl Ritter von Haidinger, Austrian mineralogist (d. 1871)
- 1804 - Johan Ludvig Runeberg, Finnish poet (d. 1877)
- 1808 - Carl Spitzweg, German painter (d. 1885)
- 1810 - Ole Bull, Norwegian violinist (d. 1880)
- 1837 - Dwight L. Moody, American evangelist (d. 1899)
- 1840 - John Boyd Dunlop, Scottish inventor (d. 1921)
- 1848 - Joris-Karl Huysmans, French author (d. 1907)
- 1848 - Belle Starr, American outlaw (d. 1889)
- 1878 - André Citroën, French automobile pioneer (d. 1935)
- 1880 - Gabriel Voisin, French aviation pioneer (d. 1973)
- 1889 - Ernest Tyldesley, English cricketer (d. 1962)
- 1900 - Adlai Stevenson, American politician (d. 1965)
- 1906 - John Carradine, American actor (d. 1988)
- 1908 - Daisy and Violet Hilton, English conjoined twin actresses (d. 1969)
- 1910 - Francisco Varallo, Argentine footballer
- 1911 - Jussi Björling, Swedish tenor (d. 1960)
- 1914 - William S. Burroughs, American author (d. 1997)
- 1914 - Alan Lloyd Hodgkin, British scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1998)
- 1915 - Robert Hofstadter, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1990)
- 1918 - Tim Holt, American actor (d. 1973)
- 1919 - Red Buttons, American actor
- 1919 - Andreas Papandreou, Greek politician (d. 1996)
- 1921 - John Pritchard, English conductor (d. 1989)
- 1923 - Claude King, American musician
- 1927 - Ruth Fertel, American entrepreneur (d. 2002)
- 1928 - Andrew Greeley, American priest and novelist
- 1929 - Luc Ferrari, French composer (d. 2005)
- 1929 - Fred Sinowatz, Austrian politician
- 1929 - Al Worthington, baseball player
- 1930 - John A. Gambling, American radio show host (d. 2004)
- 1933 - Jörn Donner, Finnish writer, film director, producer and politician
- 1934 - Don Cherry, Canadian NHL Hockey player, and "CBC's Hockey Night in Canada" Commentator
- 1934 - Hank Aaron, baseball player
- 1937 - Stuart Damon, American actor
- 1940 - H.R. Giger, Swiss artist
- 1941 - Jane Bryant Quinn, American journalist
- 1941 - David Selby, American actor
- 1941 - Kaspar Villiger, Swiss Federal Councilor
- 1942 - Roger Staubach, American football player
- 1943 - Nolan Bushnell, American video game pioneer
- 1943 - Michael Mann, American film director, writer, and producer
- 1943 - Craig Morton, American football player
- 1944 - Al Kooper, American musician
- 1945 - Charlotte Rampling, English actress
- 1947 - Darrell Waltrip, American race car driver
- 1948 - Christopher Guest, American actor, writer, director, composer, and the 5th Baron Haden-Guest
- 1948 - Barbara Hershey, American actress
- 1948 - Errol Morris, American film director
- 1948 - V. Alexander Stefan, American physicist, educator, and writer
- 1949 - Nigel Olsson, drummer
- 1962 - Jennifer Jason Leigh, American actress
- 1964 - Laura Linney, American actress
- 1964 - Duff McKagen, American musician (Guns N'Roses)
- 1965 - Gheorghe Hagi, Romanian footballer
- 1966 - Rok Petrovič, Slovenian skier (d. 1993)
- 1968 - Roberto Alomar, baseball player
- 1969 - Bobby Brown, American singer
- 1971 - Sara Evans, American singer
- 1972 - Mary, Crown Princess of Denmark
- 1977 - Ben Ainslie, British sailor
- 1977 - Ahmad Merritt, American football player
- 1984 - Carlos Tévez, Argentinine footballer
- 1985 - Cristiano Ronaldo, Portuguese footballer
- 1989 - Jeremy Sumpter, American actor
Deaths
- 995 - William IV, Duke of Aquitaine (b. 937)
- 1520 - Sten Sture the Younger, regent of Sweden (b. 1493)
- 1578 - Giambattista Moroni, Italian painter
- 1705 - Philipp Jakob Spener, German theologian (b. 1635)
- 1766 - Leopold Josef Graf Daun, Austrian field marshal (b. 1705)
- 1775 - Eusebius Amort, German Catholic theologian (b. 1692)
- 1790 - William Cullen, Scottish physician and chemist (b. 1710)
- 1807 - Pasquale Paoli, Corsican patriot and military leader (b. 1725)
- 1818 - King Charles XIII of Sweden (b. 1748)
- 1881 - Thomas Carlyle, Scottish writer and historian (b. 1795)
- 1915 - Ross Barnes, baseball player (b. 1850)
- 1922 - Slavoljub Eduard Penkala, Croatian inventor (b. 1871)
- 1922 - Christiaan De Wet, South African general
- 1937 - Lou Andreas-Salome, Russian-born writer (b. 1861)
- 1946 - George Arliss, English actor (b. 1868)
- 1962 - Jacques Ibert, French composer (b. 1890)
- 1966 - Ludwig Binswanger, Swiss psychiatrist (b. 1881)
- 1967 - Leon Leonwood Bean, American department store founder (b. 1872)
- 1970 - Rudy York, baseball player (b. 1913)
- 1972 - Marianne Moore, American poet (b. 1887)
- 1976 - Rudy Pompilli, American musician (Bill Haley and His Comets) (b. 1926)
- 1977 - Oskar Klein, Swedish physicist (b. 1894)
- 1981 - Ella Grasso, Governor of Connecticut (b. 1919)
- 1991 - Dean Jagger, American actor (b. 1903)
- 1992 - Miguel Rolando Covian, Brazilian physiologist (b. 1913)
- 1993 - Joseph L. Mankiewicz, American writer, producer, and director (b. 1909)
- 1995 - Doug McClure, American actor (b. 1935)
- 1997 - Pamela Harriman, English-born American diplomat (b. 1920)
- 1999 - Wassily Leontief, Russian economist, Bank of Sweden Prize winner (b. 1906)
- 2003 - Helge Boes, American Central Intelligence Agency officer
- 2005 - Gnassingbe Eyadema, President of Togo (b. 1937)
Holidays and observances
- Catholicism - Feast day of St Agatha.
External links
February 4 - February 6 - January 5 - March 5 -- listing of all days