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

Events

• 1046 - Naser Khosrow begins his "itinerary" which he would later describe in Safarnameh.
• 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 Liege 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 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 - Montgomery Blair is named 23rd Postmaster General of the United States by Abraham Lincoln
• 1867 - Little River County, Arkansas is 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.
• 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 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.
• 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 .
• 1958 - Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region is established.
• 1958 - Explorer 2 spacecraft launched.
• 1960 - Elvis Presley is discharged from the United States Army.
• 1963 - Country Singer Patsy Cline dies in a plane crash.
• 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.
• 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.
• 1978 - Landsat 3 is 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 - SNL star John Belushi dies of a drug overdose in his hotel room.
• 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.
• 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 - 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 withdraws several papers as a result of the Jan Hendrik Schön scandal.
• 2004 - A three-headed frog is found in Weston-super-Mare, England.

Births

• 1133 - King Henry II of England (d. 1189)
• 1324 - King David II of Scotland (d. 1371)
• 1512 - Gerardus Mercator, Flemish cartographer (d. 1594)
• 1563 - John Coke, English politician (d. 1644)
• 1575 - William Oughtred, English mathematician (d. 1660)
• 1658 - Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac, French explorer (d. 1730)
• 1693 - Johann Jakob Wettstein, German theologian (d. 1754)
• 1696 - Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Italian painter (d. 1770)
• 1748 - Jonas C. Dryander, Swedish botanist (d. 1810)
• 1748 - William Shield, English musician (d. 1829)
• 1750 - Jean-Baptiste Gaspard d'Ansse de Villoison, French classical scholar (d. 1805)
• 1814 - Wilhelm von Giesebrecht, German historian (d. 1889)
• 1815 - John Wentworth, U.S. politician (d. 1888)
• 1817 - Austen Henry Layard, English excavator of Nineveh (d. 1894)
• 1836 - Charles Goodnight, American cattle rancher (d. 1929)
• 1867 - Louis-Alexandre Taschereau, Premier of Quebec (d. 1952)
• 1869 - Michael von Faulhaber, German cardinal and archbishop (d. 1952)
• 1870 - Frank Norris, American writer (d. 1902)
• 1871 - Rosa Luxemburg, German revolutionary (d. 1919)
• 1874 - Henry Travers, British actor (d. 1965)
• 1879 - William Beveridge, British economist (d. 1963)
• 1886 - Dong Biwu, founder of the Communist Party of China (d. 1975)
• 1887 - Heitor Villa-Lobos, Brazilian composer (d. 1959)
• 1897 - Madame Chiang Kai-Shek, Chinese political figure (d. 2003)
• 1898 - Zhou Enlai, Premier of the People's Republic of China (d. 1976)
• 1904 - Karl Rahner, German theologian (d. 1984)
• 1905 - Günther Lüders , actor and film director (d. 1975)
• 1908 - Rex Harrison, English actor (d. 1990)
• 1910 - Józef Marcinkiewicz, Polish mathematician (d. 1940)
• 1915 - Laurent Schwartz, French mathematician (d. 2002)
• 1918 - James Tobin, American economist (d. 2002)
• 1920 - Virginia Christine , American actress (d. 1996)
• 1921 - Elmer Valo, Major League Baseball player (d. 1998)
• 1922 - Pier Paolo Pasolini, Italian writer and film director (d. 1975)
• 1922 - James Noble , American actor
• 1923 - Laurence Tisch, American investor
• 1926 - Joan Shawlee , American actress (d. 1987)
• 1927 - Jack Cassidy, American actor (d. 1976)
• 1927 - Craig Hill , American actor
• 1934 - James B. Sikking , American actor
• 1936 - Dean Stockwell, American actor
• 1936 - Canaan Banana, President of Zimbabwe (d. 2003)
• 1937 - Olusegun Obasanjo, leader of Nigeria
• 1938 - Fred Williamson, American football player and actor
• 1939 - Pierre Wynants, Belgian chef
• 1939 - Samantha Eggar, British actress
• 1942 - Felipe González Márquez, Prime Minister of Spain
• 1943 - Billy Backus, boxer
• 1947 - Clodagh Rodgers, Northern Irish singer
• 1948 - Eddy Grant, singer
• 1951 - Elaine Paige, English singer, actress
• 1954 - Marsha Warfield, American actress, comedienne
• 1955 - Penn Jillette, American magician and comedian
• 1958 - Andy Gibb, English singer (d. 1988)
• 1959 - Vazgen Sargsyan , Prime Minister of Armenia (d. 1999)
• 1962 - Charlie and Craig Reed, Scottish singers (The Proclaimers)
• 1966 - Michael Irvin, American football player
• 1970 - John Frusciante, American musician (The Red Hot Chili Peppers)
• 1974 - Jens Jeremies, German football player
• 1974 - Kevin Connolly , American actor
• 1974 - Eva Mendes, American actress
• 1975 - Jolene Blalock, American actress
• 1975 - Niki Taylor, American fashion model
• 1976 - Sarunas Jasikevicius, Lithuanian basketball player
• 1977 - Wally Szczerbiak, NBA basketball player
• 1981 - Frances Ashton , supermodel
• 1989 - Jake Lloyd, American actor

Deaths

• 1534 - Antonio da Correggio, Italian painter (b. 1489)
• 1605 - Pope Clement VIII (b. 1536)
• 1611 - Shimazu Yoshihisa, Japanese daimyo and samurai (b. 1533)
• 1622 - Ranuccio Farnese I, Duke of Parma (b. 1569)
• 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, French mathematician (b. 1659)
• 1829 - John Adams, last surviving Bounty mutineer
• 1849 - David Scott, painter
• 1876 - Marie d'Agoult, writer
• 1893 - Hippolyte Taine, French historian
• 1895 - Henry Rawlinson, soldier
• 1903 - George Francis Robert Henderson, soldier
• 1907 - Friedrich Blass, scholar
• 1926 - Clément Ader, French aviation pioneer (b. 1841)
• 1927 - Franz Mertens, mathematician
• 1940 - Cai Yuanpei, educator
• 1944 - Max Jacob, French poet and writer (b. 1876)
• 1953 - Sergei Prokofiev, Russian 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
• 1974 - Billy De Wolfe , American actor, comedian
• 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
• 1996 - Whit Bissell, American actor
• 1997 - Samm Sinclair Baker, coauthor of the Scarsdale Diet
• 1999 - Richard Kiley, actor
• 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

External links

• BBC: On This Day

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