5 January
January 5 is the 5th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. There are 360 days remaining until the end of the year (361 in leap years).
Events
- 1463 - Poet François Villon is banned from Paris.
- 1477 - Battle of Nancy, Charles the Bold killed, Burgundy becomes part of France.
- 1500 - Duke Ludovico Sforza conquers Milan.
- 1527 - Martyrdom of Felix Manz, a Swiss Anabaptist.
- 1554 - Great fire in Eindhoven, Netherlands.
- 1675 - Battle of Colmar, French army beats Brandenburg.
- 1759 - George Washington marries Martha Dandridge Curtis.
- 1781 - American Revolutionary War: Richmond, Virginia is burned by British naval forces led by Benedict Arnold.
- 1846 - The United States House of Representatives votes to stop sharing the Oregon Territory with the United Kingdom.
- 1854 - The San Francisco steamer sinks, 300 dead.
- 1895 - Dreyfus Affair: French officer Alfred Dreyfus is stripped of his rank and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island.
- 1896 - An Austrian newspaper reports that Wilhelm Roentgen discovered a type of radiation later known as X-rays.
- 1900 - Irish leader John Edward Redmond calls for a revolt against British rule.
- 1909 - Colombia recognizes the independence of Panama.
- 1914 - Ford Motor Company announces an eight-hour workday and a minimum wage of $5 for a day's labor.
- 1925 - Nellie Tayloe Ross becomes the first female governor in the United States.
- 1933 - Construction of the Golden Gate Bridge begins in San Francisco Bay.
- 1940 - FM radio is demonstrated to the FCC for the first time.
- 1944 - The London Daily Mail becomes the first transoceanic newspaper.
- 1945 - The Soviet Union recognizes the new pro-Soviet government of Poland.
- 1948 - Warner Brothers shows the first color newsreel (Tournament of Roses Parade and the Rose Bowl).
- 1956 - Elvis Presley records Heartbreak Hotel.
- 1957 - Major league baseballer Jackie Robinson retires.
- 1961 - Television: Mr. Ed debuts.
- 1964 - Pope Paul VI meets the Greek patriarch Athenagoras I in Jerusalem, the first meeting of Catholic and Orthodox Christianity leaders since 1439.
- 1968 - Alexander Dubček comes to power, "Prague Spring" begins in Czechoslovakia.
- 1970 - Soap opera: All My Children premieres.
- 1972 - President of the United States Richard Nixon orders the development of a space shuttle program.
- 1973 - Netherlands recognizes East Germany.
- 1975 - The Tasman Bridge in Tasmania, Australia, is struck by the bulk ore carrier Lake Illawarra, killing twelve people.
- 1976 - Cambodia is renamed Democratic Campuchea.
- 1980 - Hewlett-Packard announces release of its first personal computer.
- 1984 - Richard Stallman starts developing GNU.
- 1987 - President of the United States Ronald Reagan undergoes prostate surgery causing worries about his health.
- 1993 - The oil tanker MV Braer runs aground on the coast of the Shetland Islands spilling 84,700 tonnes of oil.
- 1993 - Washington state executes Westley Allan Dodd by hanging (the first legal hanging in America since 1965).
- 1996 - Hamas operative Yahya Ayyash is killed by an Israeli-planted booby-trapped cell phone.
- 1997 - Withdrawal of Russian forces from Chechnya.
- 2000 - The 1st day of the 2000 Al Qaeda Summit.
- 2002 - Charles Bishop, a 15-year-old student pilot, crashes a light aircraft into a Tampa, Florida building, evoking fear of a copycat 9/11 terrorist attack.
Births
- 1596 - Henry Lawes, composer (d. 1662)
- 1717 - William Wildman Shute Barrington, British statesman (d. 1793)
- 1779 - Stephen Decatur, American naval officer (d. 1820)
- 1779 - Zebulon Pike, American explorer (d. 1813)
- 1811 - Cyrus Hamlin, educator/inventor/architect/Christian missionary
- 1855 - King Camp Gillette, inventor (d. 1932)
- 1876 - Konrad Adenauer, German chancellor 1949-1963 (d. 1967)
- 1880 - Nikolay Medtner, composer (d. 1951)
- 1893 - Paramahansa Yogananda, Indian guru (d. 1952)
- 1900 - Yves Tanguy, Surrealist painter (d. 1955)
- 1904 - Jeane Dixon, astrologer (d. 1997)
- 1909 - Stephen Kleene, mathematician (d. 1994)
- 1910 - Jack Lovelock, New Zealand athlete
- 1913 - Jean-Pierre Aumont, actor (d. 2001)
- 1914 - George Reeves, actor (d. 1959)
- 1920 - Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, pianist (d. 1995)
- 1921 - Friedrich Dürrenmatt, writer (d. 1990)
- 1923 - Sam Phillips, country music producer (d. 2003)
- 1926 - Maria Schell, actress
- 1928 - Walter Mondale, U.S. Senator, Democratic presidential nominee in 1984
- 1928 - Ali Bhutto, President and Prime Minister of Pakistan (d. 1979)
- 1931 - Alvin Ailey, choreographer (d. 1989)
- 1931 - Alfred Brendel, pianist
- 1931 - Robert Duvall, actor and director
- 1932 - Umberto Eco, philologist and writer
- 1932 - Raisa Gorbachev, political consort (d. 1999)
- 1938 - King Juan Carlos of Spain
- 1941 - Miyazaki Hayao, film maker
- 1941 - Grady Thomas, singer (P-Funk)
- 1942 - Maurizio Pollini, pianist
- 1942 - Charlie Rose, talk show host
- 1946 - Diane Keaton, actress
- 1953 - George Tenet, Director of the CIA
- 1961 - Suzy Amis, actress
- 1962 - Joe Monzo, microtonal composer and tuning-theorist
- 1969 - Marilyn Manson, singer
- 1975 - Bradley Cooper, actor
- 1982 - Janica Kostelic, Croatian alpine skier
Deaths
- 842 - Al-Mu'tasim, Abbasid caliph
- 1066 - Edward the Confessor, King of England since 1042
- 1387 - Pedro IV of Aragon (b. 1320)
- 1589 - Catherine de Medici, Queen of France (b. 1519)
- 1655 - Pope Innocent X (b. 1574)
- 1740 - Antonio Lotti, composer (b. 1667)
- 1858 - Johann Radetzky, Austrian field marshal (b. 1769)
- 1891 - Emma Abbott, american opera singer (b. 1849)
- 1922 - Ernest Shackleton, explorer (b. 1874)
- 1929 - Nikolai Nikolaevich Romanov, Grand Duke of Russia
- 1933 - Calvin Coolidge, President of the United States (b. 1872)
- 1941 - Amy Johnson, aviator (1903)
- 1943 - George Washington Carver, educator, activist, botanist (1860)
- 1956 - Mistinguett (Jeanne Bourgeois), French singer (b. 1875)
- 1963 - Rogers Hornsby, Baseball Hall of Famer (b. 1896)
- 1970 - Max Born, physicist and recipient of the Nobel Prize in physics 1954 (b. 1882)
- 1970 - Roberto Gerhard, composer
- 1970 - Jock Yablonski, president of the United Mine Workers, is discovered dead with his family
- 1971 - Douglas Shearer, pioneer motion-picture sound engineer (b. 1899)
- 1979 - Charles Mingus, musician (b. 1922)
- 1981 - Lanza del Vasto, philosopher, poet and non-violent activist (b. 1901)
- 1988 - Pete Maravich, Basketball Hall of Famer (b. 1947)
- 1994 - Thomas P. 'Tip' O'Neill, Speaker of the House (b. 1912)
- 1996 - Yahya Ayyash, terrorist (b. 1966)
- 1998 - Sonny Bono, singer, actor, United States Representative (b. 1935)
- 2002 - Igor Cassini, gossip columnist ("Cholly Knickerbocker")
- 2003 - Roy Jenkins, British politician (b. 1920)
- 2004 - Tug McGraw, baseball pitcher (b. 1944)
Holidays and observances
January 4 - January 6 - December 5 - February 5 -- listing of all days
