What Happened on May 5th in History
30 historical events on this date
The Peruvian Academy of Language is founded.
The Peruvian Academy of Language is a cultural institution that brings together literary figures, writers, poets, linguists, and scholars specializing in the use of the Spanish language in Peru. It...
The Music Hall in New York City (later known as Carnegie Hall) has its grand opening and first public performance, with Tchaikovsky as the guest conductor.
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue at 881 Seventh Avenue, between 56th and 57th Streets, in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Designed by architect William Burnet Tuthill and built by its namesake,...
Pitching against the Philadelphia Athletics at the Huntington Avenue Grounds, Cy Young of the Boston Americans throws the first perfect game in the modern era of baseball.
In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("pitches") the baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter, who attempts to either...
The trial in the Stratton Brothers case begins in London, England; it marks the first time that fingerprint evidence is used to gain a conviction for murder.
Alfred Edward Stratton (1882-1905) and his brother Albert Ernest Stratton (1884-1905) were the first men to be convicted in Britain for murder based on fingerprint evidence. They were both executed...
The first issue of the Bolshevik newspaper Pravda is published.
The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the Second Party Congress in 1903. The...
Authorities arrest Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti for alleged robbery and murder.
Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were Italian immigrants and anarchists, controversially accused of murdering Alessandro Berardelli and Frederick Parmenter, a guard and a paymaster, during the...
The 1930 Bago earthquake, the first of two major earthquakes in southern Burma, kills as many as 7,000 in Yangon and Bago.
An earthquake affected Myanmar on 5 May 1930 with a moment magnitude (MwâŻ) of 7.4. The shock occurred 35 km (22 mi) beneath the surface with a maximum RossiâForel intensity of IX. The earthquake was...
Italian troops occupy Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
The March of the Iron Will was an Italian offensive occurring from 26Â April to 5Â May 1936, during the final days of the Second Italo-Ethiopian War. Its goal was to capture the Ethiopian capital,...
World War II: Norwegian campaign: Norwegian squads in Hegra Fortress and Vinjesvingen capitulate to German forces after all other Norwegian forces in southern Norway had laid down their arms.
World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated. Tanks and aircraft played major...
Emperor Haile Selassie returns to Addis Ababa; the country commemorates the date as Liberation Day or Patriots' Victory Day.
Haile Selassie I was Emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974. He rose to power as the Regent Plenipotentiary of Ethiopia under Empress Zewditu between 1916 and 1930.
World War II: The Prague uprising begins as an attempt by the Czech resistance to free the city from German occupation.
The Prague uprising was a partially successful attempt by the Czech resistance movement to liberate the city of Prague from German occupation in May 1945, during the end of World War II. The...
World War II: A Fu-Go balloon bomb launched by the Japanese Army kills six people near Bly, Oregon.
Fu-Go was an incendiary balloon weapon deployed by Japan against the United States during World War II. It consisted of a hydrogen-filled paper balloon 33 feet (10Â m) in diameter, with a payload...
World War II: Battle of Castle Itter, one of only two battles in that war in which American and German troops fought cooperatively.
The Battle of Castle Itter was fought on 5 May 1945, in the Austrian village of Itter in the North Tyrol region of the country, during the last days of the European Theater of World War II.
The International Military Tribunal for the Far East begins in Tokyo with twenty-eight Japanese military and government officials accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE), also known as the Tokyo Trial and the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal, was a military trial convened on April 29, 1946, to try leaders of the...
The General Treaty, by which France, Britain and the United States recognize the sovereignty of West Germany, comes into effect.
The BonnâParis conventions were signed in May 1952 and came into force after the 1955 ratification. The conventions put an end to the Allied occupation of West Germany.
Project Mercury: Alan Shepard becomes the first American to travel into outer space, on a sub-orbital flight.
Project Mercury was the first human spaceflight program of the United States, running from 1958 through 1963. An early highlight of the Space Race, its goal was to put a man into Earth orbit and...
The Council of Europe declares May 5 as Europe Day.
The Council of Europe is an international organisation which aims to uphold human rights, democracy and the rule of law in Europe. Founded in 1949, it is Europe's oldest intergovernmental...
Alitalia Flight 112 crashes into Mount Longa near Palermo, Sicily, killing all 115 aboard, making it the deadliest single-aircraft disaster in Italy.
Alitalia Flight 112 was a scheduled flight from Leonardo da Vinci Airport, in Rome, Italy, to Palermo International Airport in Palermo, Italy, with 115 on board. On 5 May 1972, the Douglas DC-8-43...
Secretariat wins the 1973 Kentucky Derby in 1:59.4, an as-yet-unbeaten record.
Secretariat, also known as Big Red, was a champion American Thoroughbred racehorse who was the ninth winner of the American Triple Crown, setting and still holding the fastest time record in all...
Operation Nimrod: The British Special Air Service storms the Iranian embassy in London after a six-day siege.
The Iranian Embassy siege took place from 30 April to 5 May 1980, after a group of six armed men stormed the Iranian embassy on Prince's Gate in South Kensington, London.
Bobby Sands dies in the Long Kesh prison hospital after 66 days of hunger-striking, aged 27.
Robert Gerard Sands was a member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) who died on hunger strike while imprisoned at HM Prison Maze in Northern Ireland. Sands helped to plan the 1976...
Ronald Reagan visits the military cemetery at Bitburg and the site of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where he makes a speech.
Ronald Wilson Reagan was an American politician and actor who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. A member of the Republican Party, he became an important figure in...
IranâContra affair: Start of Congressional televised hearings in the United States.
The IranâContra affair, also referred to as the IranâContra scandal, the Contragate, Iran Initiative, or simply IranâContra, was a political scandal in the United States that centered on arms...
A riot breaks out in the Mt. Pleasant section of Washington, D.C. after police shoot a Salvadoran man.
The 1991 Washington, D.C., riot, sometimes referred to as the Mount Pleasant riot or Mount Pleasant Disturbance, occurred in May 1991, when rioting broke out in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood of...
The signing of the Bishkek Protocol between Armenia and Azerbaijan effectively freezes the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
The Bishkek Protocol was a provisional ceasefire agreement, signed by the representatives of Armenia, Azerbaijan, the breakaway Republic of Artsakh, and Russia on May 12, 1994, in Bishkek, the...
American teenager Michael P. Fay is caned in Singapore for theft and vandalism.
In 1994, the District Court in Singapore sentenced an American teenager, Michael Fay, to be lashed six times with a cane for violating the Vandalism Act. This caused a temporary strain in relations...
The government of Sudan signs an accord with the Sudan Liberation Army.
Sudan, officially the Republic of the Sudan, is a country in Northeast Africa. It borders the Central African Republic to the southwest, Chad to the west, Libya to the northwest, Egypt to the north,...
Kenya Airways Flight 507 crashes after takeoff from Douala International Airport in Douala, Cameroon, killing all 114 aboard, making it the deadliest aircraft disaster in Cameroon.
Kenya Airways Flight 507 was a scheduled international passenger service between Abidjan, Ivory Coast, and Nairobi, Kenya with a stopover in Douala, Cameroon, operated by Kenya Airways. On 5 May...
Mass protests in Greece erupt in response to austerity measures imposed by the government as a result of the Greek government-debt crisis.
The anti-austerity movement in Greece involved a series of demonstrations and general strikes that took place across the country. The events, which began on 5 May 2010, were provoked by plans to cut...
The World Health Organization declares the end of the COVID-19 pandemic as a global health emergency.
The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) which coordinates responses to international public health issues and emergencies. It is headquartered in...