What Happened on June 5th in History
30 historical events on this date
The Six-Day War begins: Israel launches surprise strikes against Egyptian air-fields in response to the mobilisation of Egyptian forces on the Israeli border.
The Six-Day War, or the 1967 ArabâIsraeli war, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab states, primarily Egypt, Syria, and Jordan, in the context of the ArabâIsraeli conflict. In the war,...
Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy is assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan.
Robert Francis Kennedy, also known by his initials RFK, was an American politician and lawyer. A member of the Democratic Party, Kennedy served as the 64th United States attorney general from 1961...
The Suez Canal opens for the first time since the Six-Day War.
The Suez Canal is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia. It is the border between Africa...
The United Kingdom holds its first country-wide referendum on membership of the European Economic Community (EEC).
The 1975 United Kingdom European Communities membership referendum, also known variously as the Referendum on the European Community (Common Market), the Common Market referendum and EEC membership...
The Teton Dam in Idaho, United States, collapses. Eleven people are killed as a result of flooding.
The Teton Dam was an earthen dam in the western United States, on the Teton River in eastern Idaho. It was built by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, one of eight federal agencies authorized to...
The Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that five people in Los Angeles, California, have a rare form of pneumonia seen only in patients with weakened immune systems, in what turns out to be the first recognized cases of AIDS.
The Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) is a series of epidemiological science periodicals published by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The MMWR series...
More than 100 people are killed when the Russian river cruise ship Aleksandr Suvorov collides with a girder of the Ulyanovsk Railway Bridge. The collision caused a freight train to derail, further damaging the vessel, yet the ship remained afloat and was eventually restored and returned to service.
Aleksandr Suvorov is a Valerian Kuybyshev-class (92-016, OL400) Soviet/Russian river cruise ship, cruising in the VolgaâDon basin. On 5 June 1983 Aleksandr Suvorov crashed into a girder of the...
Operation Blue Star: Under orders from India's prime minister, Indira Gandhi, the Indian Army begins an invasion of the Golden Temple, the holiest site of the Sikh religion.
Operation Blue Star was a military operation by the Indian Armed Forces conducted between 1 and 10 June 1984, with the stated objective of removing Damdami Taksal leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale...
The Tank Man halts the progress of a column of advancing tanks for over half an hour after the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.
Tank Man is an unidentified individual, presumed to be a Chinese man, who stood in front of a column of Type 59 tanks on Chang'an Avenue near Tiananmen Square in Beijing on June 5, 1989. The...
Space Shuttle Columbia is launched on STS-40, the fifth spacelab mission.
Space Shuttle Columbia (OV-102) was a Space Shuttle orbiter manufactured by Rockwell International and operated by NASA. Named after the first American ship to circumnavigate the globe, and the...
Portions of the Holbeck Hall Hotel in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, UK, fall into the sea following a landslide.
The Holbeck Hall Hotel was a clifftop hotel in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, England, owned by the Turner family. It was built in 1879 by George Alderson Smith as a private residence, and was later...
The BoseâEinstein condensate is first created.
In condensed matter physics, a BoseâEinstein condensate (BEC) is a state of matter that is typically formed when a gas of bosons at very low densities is cooled to temperatures very close to...
The Second Republic of the Congo Civil War begins.
The Second Republic of the Congo Civil War, also known as the Second Brazzaville-Congolese Civil War, was the second of two ethnopolitical civil conflicts in the Republic of the Congo which lasted...
A strike begins at the General Motors parts factory in Flint, Michigan, that quickly spreads to five other assembly plants. The strike lasts seven weeks.
Strike action, also called labor strike, labour strike in British English, or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in...
The Six-Day War in Kisangani begins in Kisangani, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, between Ugandan and Rwandan forces. A large part of the city is destroyed.
The Six-Day War was a series of armed confrontations between Ugandan and Rwandan forces around the city of Kisangani in the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 5 to 10 June 2000. The war formed...
Tropical Storm Allison makes landfall on the upper-Texas coastline as a strong tropical storm and dumps large amounts of rain over Houston. The storm causes $5.5Â billion in damages, making Allison the second costliest tropical storm in U.S. history.
Tropical Storm Allison was a tropical cyclone that devastated southeast Texas in June 2001. It lasted unusually long for a June storm, remaining tropical and subtropical for 16 days, most of which...
Space Shuttle Endeavour launches on STS-111, carrying the Expedition 5 crew to the International Space Station to replace the Expedition 4 crew. Astronaut Franklin Chang-DĂaz becomes the second person to have flown on seven spaceflights.
Space Shuttle Endeavour is a retired orbiter from NASA's Space Shuttle program and the fifth and final operational Shuttle built. It embarked on its first mission, STS-49, in May 1992 and its 25th...
A severe heat wave across Pakistan and India reaches its peak, as temperatures exceed 50 °C (122 °F) in the region.
A heat wave or heatwave, sometimes described as extreme heat, is a period of abnormally hot weather and natural disaster that lasts for multiple days. A heat wave is usually measured relative to the...
NoÍl Mamère, Mayor of Bègles, celebrates marriage for two men for the first time in France.
NoÍl Mamère is a French journalist and former politician. He was the mayor of Bègles in Gironde from 1989 to 2017, as well as deputy to the French National Assembly for Gironde's 3rd constituency...
Serbia declares independence from the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro.
Serbia, officially the Republic of Serbia, is a landlocked country in Southeast and Central Europe. Located in the Balkans, it is bordered by Hungary in the north, Romania in the northeast, Bulgaria...
After 65 straight days of civil disobedience, at least 31 people are killed in clashes between security forces and indigenous people near Bagua, Peru.
The 2009 Peruvian political crisis resulted from the ongoing opposition to oil development in the Peruvian Amazon by local Indigenous peoples; they protested PetroperĂş and confronted the National...
A fire at a day-care center kills 49 people in Hermosillo, Mexico.
The ABC Day Care Center Fire in Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico, took place on Friday, June 5, 2009 and resulted in 49 deaths. Thirty five children died that day, with the death toll subsequently rising...
Last transit of Venus until the year 2117.
The 2012 transit of Venus, when the planet Venus appeared as a small, dark spot passing across the face of the Sun, began at 22:09 UTC on 5 June 2012, and finished at 04:49 UTC on 6 June. Depending...
An earthquake with a moment magnitude of 6.0 strikes Ranau, Sabah, Malaysia, killing 18 people, including hikers and mountain guides on Mount Kinabalu, after mass landslides that occurred during the earthquake. This is the strongest earthquake to strike Malaysia since 1975.
The 2015 Sabah earthquake struck Ranau, Sabah, Malaysia with a moment magnitude of 6.0 on 5 June, which lasted for 30 seconds. The earthquake was the strongest to affect Malaysia since the 1976...
Two shootings in Aktobe, Kazakhstan, kill six people.
The 2016 Aktobe shootings were a series of shootings on civilian and military targets in Aktobe, Kazakhstan, in June 2016. On 5 June, two attacks occurred at gun stores, while a third attack was...
Montenegro becomes the 29th member of NATO.
Montenegro is a country in Southeast Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Its 25 municipalities have a total population of 633,158 people in an area of 13,883Â km2. It is bordered by Serbia to the...
Six Arab countriesâBahrain, Egypt, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and the United Arab Emiratesâcut diplomatic ties with Qatar, accusing it of destabilising the region.
Bahrain, officially the Kingdom of Bahrain, is an island country in West Asia. Situated near the western shore of the Persian Gulf, the country comprises a small archipelago of 33 natural islands...
A constitutional referendum is held in Kazakhstan following violent protests and civil unrest against the government.
A constitutional referendum, locally called the republican referendum, was held in Kazakhstan on 5 June 2022. It was the third referendum since Kazakhstan's independence in 1991, and the first since...
The Boeing Starliner is launched on its first crewed flight, carrying astronauts Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams to the International Space Station.
The Boeing Starliner is a spacecraft designed to transport crew to and from the International Space Station (ISS) and other low-Earth-orbit destinations. Under development by Boeing under NASA's...
The Nintendo Switch 2 video game console is released worldwide.
The Nintendo Switch 2 is a video game console developed by Nintendo and released in most regions on June 5, 2025. Like the original Nintendo Switch, it can be used as a handheld, as a tablet, or...