May 5

What happened that day?

• 2014: Twenty-two people die after two boats carrying refugees collide in the Aegean Sea off the coast of Greece.
• 2014: Eleven people are missing after a Chinese cargo ship collides with a Marshall Islands registered container ship off the coast of Hong Kong.
• 2010: Mass protests in Greece erupt in response to austerity measures imposed by the government as a result of the Greek government-debt crisis.
• 2006: The government of Sudan signs an accord with the Sudan Liberation Army.
• 1994: American teenager Michael P. Fay is caned in Singapore for theft and vandalism.
• 1994: The signing of the Bishkek Protocol between Armenia and Azerbaijan effectively freezes the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
• 1991: A riot breaks out in the Mt. Pleasant section of Washington, D.C. after police shoot a Salvadoran man.
• 1987: Iran-Contra affair: Start of Congressional televised hearings in the United States of America
• 1985: Bitburg and Bergen-Belsen: Ronald Reagan visits the military cemetery at Bitburg, Germany, and the site of the Nazi concentration camp, Bergen-Belsen, where he makes a speech.
• 1981: Bobby Sands dies in the Long Kesh prison hospital after 66 days of hunger-striking, aged 27.
• 1980: Operation Nimrod: The British Special Air Service storms the Iranian embassy in London after a six-day siege.
• 1973: Secretariat wins the 1973 Kentucky Derby in 1:59 2/5, an as-yet unbeaten record.
• 1972: Alitalia Flight 112 crashes into Mount Longa near Palermo, Sicily, killing all 115 aboard, making it the deadliest single-aircraft disaster in Italy.
• 1964: The Council of Europe declares May 5 as Europe Day.
• 1961: The Mercury program: Mercury-Redstone 3: Alan Shepard becomes the first American to travel into outer space, on a sub-orbital flight.
• 1955: West Germany gains full sovereignty.
• 1950: Bhumibol Adulyadej is crowned as King of Thailand.
• 1946: 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.
• 1945: World War II: Six people are killed when a Japanese fire balloon explodes near Bly, Oregon. They are the only Americans killed in the continental US during the war.
• 1945: World War II: The Prague uprising begins as an attempt by the Czech resistance to free the city from German occupation.
• 1944: German troops execute 216 civilians in the village of Kleisoura, Greece.
• 1941: Emperor Haile Selassie returns to Addis Ababa; the country commemorates the date as Liberation Day or Patriots' Victory Day.
• 1940: 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.
• 1940: World War II: Norwegian refugees form a government-in-exile in London.
• 1936: Italian troops occupy Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
• 1927: To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf is first published.
• 1925: The government of South Africa declares Afrikaans an official language.
• 1925: Scopes Trial: Serving of an arrest warrant on John T. Scopes for teaching evolution in violation of the Butler Act.
• 1920: Authorities arrest Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti for alleged robbery and murder.
• 1912: Pravda, the "voice" of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, begins publication in Saint Petersburg.
• 1905: 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.
• 1904: 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.
• 1891: 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.
• 1886: The Bay View massacre: A militia fires into a crowd of protesters in Milwaukee, killing seven.
• 1877: American Indian Wars: Sitting Bull leads his band of Lakota into Canada to avoid harassment by the United States Army under Colonel Nelson Miles.
• 1866: Memorial Day first celebrated in United States at Waterloo, New York.
• 1865: American Civil War: The Confederate government was declared dissolved at Washington, Georgia.
• 1865: American Civil War: The Confederate District of the Gulf surrenders about 4,000 men at Citronelle, Alabama.
• 1864: American Civil War: The Battle of the Wilderness begins in Spotsylvania County.
• 1862: Cinco de Mayo: Troops led by Ignacio Zaragoza halt a French invasion in the Battle of Puebla in Mexico.
• 1860: Giuseppe Garibaldi sets sail from Genoa, leading the expedition of the Thousand to conquer the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and giving birth to the Kingdom of Italy.
• 1835: The first railway in continental Europe opens between Brussels and Mechelen.
• 1821: Emperor Napoleon dies in exile on the island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean.
• 1811: In the second day of fighting at the Peninsular War Battle of Fuentes de Oñoro the French army, under Marshall André Masséna, drive in the Duke of Wellington's overextended right flank, but French frontal assaults fail to take the town of Fuentes de Oñoro and the Anglo-Portuguese army holds the field at the end of the day.
• 1809: The Swiss canton of Aargau allowed citizenship to Jews.
• 1809: Mary Kies becomes the first woman awarded a U.S. patent, for a technique of weaving straw with silk and thread.
• 1789: In France, the Estates-General convenes for the first time since 1614.
• 1762: Russia and Prussia sign the Treaty of St. Petersburg.
• 1640: King Charles I of England dissolves the Short Parliament.
• 1494: Christopher Columbus lands on the island of Jamaica and claims it for Spain.
• 1260: Kublai Khan becomes ruler of the Mongol Empire.
• 1215: Rebel barons renounce their allegiance to King John of England — part of a chain of events leading to the signing of the Magna Carta.
• 553: The Second Council of Constantinople begins.