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 Leopold 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 United States Congress passes a law banning most Asian immigration.
• 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 began to broadcast 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.
• 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.
• 1953 - The movie Peter Pan premieres (Roxy Theatre, 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 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 began.
• 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 United States Congress.
• 1978 - The Blizzard of 1978, one of the worst Nor'easters ever to hit New England, formed.
• 1988 - Manuel Noriega is indicted on drug smuggling and money laundering charges.
• 1988 - Comic Relief held the first "Red Nose Day", which raised a £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 announced that they had separated.
• 2003 - U.S. plan to invade Iraq: Colin Powell addresses the UN Security Council on Iraq.
• 2004 - 23 Chinese people drown when a group of 35 cockle-pickers are trapped by rising tides in Morecambe Bay, England. 21 bodies are recovered.
• 2004 - Rebels from the Revolutionary Artibonite Resistance Front captured the city of Gonaïves, starting the 2004 Haiti rebellion.

Births

• 1600 - Dr. Johan Picardt , doctor and author
• 1608 - Caspar Schott , scientist
• 1626 - Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de Sévigné, French author
• 1725 - James Otis, American lawyer and patriot (d. 1783)
• 1748 - Christian Gottlieb Neefe , organist/composer
• 1788 - Robert Peel, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1850)
• 1804 - Johan Ludvig Runeberg, Finnish poet (d. 1877)
• 1808 - Carl Spitzweg, painter (d. 1885)
• 1810 - Ole Bull, Norwegian violinist (d. 1880)
• 1837 - Dwight L. Moody, evangelist (d. 1899)
• 1840 - John Boyd Dunlop, inventor (d. 1921)
• 1848 - Joris-Karl Huysmans, author (d. 1907)
• 1848 - Belle Starr, outlaw (d. 1889)
• 1878 - André Citroën, French automobile pioneer (d. 1935)
• 1880 - Gabriel Voisin, French aviation pioneer (d. 1973)
• 1900 - Adlai Stevenson, American politician (d. 1965)
• 1904 - Walter Gross , cabaretist (d. 1989)
• 1906 - John Carradine, actor (d. 1988)
• 1908 - Daisy and Violet Hilton, conjoined twins, actresses (d. 1969)
• 1914 - William S. Burroughs, American author (d. 1997)
• 1918 - Tim Holt, American actor (d. 1973)
• 1919 - Red Buttons, actor
• 1919 - Andreas Papandreou, Greek politician (d. 1996)
• 1921 - John Pritchard, English conductor (d. 1989)
• 1927 - Ruth Fertel, entrepreneur (d. 2002)
• 1928 - Andrew Greeley, priest, novelist
• 1929 - Fred Sinowatz, politician
• 1930 - John A. Gambling, radio show host (d. 2004)
• 1934 - Hank Aaron, Baseball Hall of Famer
• 1935 - Sandra Paretti , author (d. 1994)
• 1937 - Stuart Damon, American actor
• 1940 - H.R. Giger, artist
• 1941 - Kaspar Villiger, former member of the Swiss Federal Council
• 1941 - David Selby, American actor
• 1941 - Jane Bryant Quinn, American journalist
• 1942 - Roger Staubach, Pro Football Hall of Famer
• 1943 - Nolan Bushnell, video game pioneer
• 1943 - Craig Morton, American football star
• 1943 - Michael Mann, American film director, writer, producer
• 1944 - Gilles Aubin , physicist
• 1944 - Al Kooper, musician
• 1945 - Charlotte Rampling, actress
• 1947 - Darrell Waltrip, automobile racer
• 1948 - Christopher Guest, actor, writer, director, composer
• 1948 - Barbara Hershey, actress
• 1948 - Errol Morris, American documentary film director
• 1956 - Richard S. Stamos New York writer, artist, nascent scientist, Cartesan Agnostic.
• 1962 - Jennifer Jason Leigh, American actress
• 1964 - Laura Linney, actress
• 1964 - Duff McKagen, Guns N'Roses
• 1965 - Gheorghe Hagi, Romanian football player
• 1966 - Rok Petrovič, Slovenian alpine skier (d. 1993)
• 1968 - Roberto Alomar, baseball player
• 1969 - Bobby Brown, singer
• 1972 - Mary E. Donaldson, Crown Princess of Denmark
• 1977 - Ahmad Merritt, football player
• 1984 - Carlos Tévez, Argentina football striker
• 1985 - Cristiano Ronaldo, football player
• 1989 - Jeremy Sumpter, American actor

Deaths

• 995 - William IV, Duke of Aquitaine
• 1520 - Sten Sture the Younger, Regent of Sweden
• 1818 - King Charles XIII / Carl II of Sweden-Norway (b. 1748)
• 1881 - Thomas Carlyle, essayist and historian (b. 1795)
• 1915 - Ross Barnes, baseball player (b. 1850)
• 1922 - Slavoljub Eduard Penkala, Croat inventor (b. 1871)
• 1946 - George Arliss, actor (b. 1868)
• 1966 - Ludwig Binswanger, existential psychiatrist (b. 1881)
• 1967 - L.L. Bean, retailer
• 1970 - Rudy York, Major League Baseball All-Star (b. 1913)
• 1972 - Marianne Moore, poet (b. 1887)
• 1981 - Ella Grasso, former governor of Connecticut
• 1991 - Dean Jagger, actor
• 1993 - Joseph L. Mankiewicz, writer, producer, director (b. 1909)
• 1995 - Doug McClure , American actor
• 1997 - Pamela Harriman, American diplomat
• 1999 - Wassily Leontief, economist
• 2003 - Helge Boes, CIA operations officer
• 2005 - Gnassingbe Eyadema, president of Togo (b. 1937)

Holidays and observances

• Catholicism - Feast day of St Agatha.

External links

• BBC: On This Day

February 4 - February 6 - January 5 - March 5 -- listing of all days