August 5
August 5 is the 217th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (218th in leap years), with 148 days remaining. Events642 - Battle of Maserfeld - Penda of Mercia defeats and kills Oswald of Bernicia 1100 - Henry I crowned King of England in Westminster Abbey 1305 - William Wallace, who led Scottish resistance to England, was captured by the English near Glasgow and transported to London for trial and execution.1583 - Sir Humphrey Gilbert establishes first English colony in North America, at what is now St John's, Newfoundland. 1689 - 1,500 Iroquois attack village of Lachine, in New France. 1763 - Pontiac's War - Battle of Bushy Run - British forces led by Henry Bouquet defeat Chief Pontiac's Indians at Bushy Run. 1772 - First Partition of Poland begins. 1812 - War of 1812: Tecumseh's Indian force ambushes Thomas Van Horne's 200 Americans at Brownstone Creek, causing them to flee and retreat. 1858 - Cyrus West Field and others complete the first transatlantic telegraph cable after several unsuccessful attempts. It operated for less than a month.1860 - Carl IV of Sweden-Norway is crowned king of Norway, in Trondheim.1861 - American Civil War: In order to help pay for the war effort, the United States government issues the first income tax as part of the Revenue Act of 1861 (3% of all incomes over US $800; rescinded in 1872). 1862 - American Civil War: Battle of Baton Rouge - Along the Mississippi River near Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Confederate troops drive Union forces back into the city. 1864 - American Civil War: Battle of Mobile Bay begins - At Mobile Bay near Mobile, Alabama, Admiral David Farragut leads a Union flotilla through Confederate defenses and seals one of the last major Southern ports. 1882 - Standard Oil of New Jersey is established. 1884 - The cornerstone for the Statue of Liberty is laid on Bedloe's Island in New York Harbor.1914 - In Cleveland, Ohio, the first electric traffic light is installed. 1944 - Holocaust: Polish insurgents liberate a German labor camp in Warsaw, freeing 348 Jewish prisoners. 1949 - In Ecuador an earthquake destroys 50 towns and kills more than 6000. 1960 - Burkina Faso, then known as "Upper Volta", became independent from France1962 - Film actress and sex icon, Marilyn Monroe is found dead in her Los Angeles, California home after apparently overdosing on sleeping pills. 1963 - United States, United Kingdom, and Soviet Union sign a nuclear test ban treaty. 1964 - Vietnam War: Operation Pierce Arrow - American aircraft from carriers USS Ticonderoga and USS Constellation bomb North Vietnam in retaliation for strikes attacked US destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin. 1969 - Mariner program: Mariner 7 makes its closest fly-by of Mars (3,524 kilometers). Vietnam War: The U.S. Congress places a $1 billion dollar limit on 1974 military aid to South Vietnam. 1981 - Ronald Reagan fires 11,359 striking air-traffic controllers who ignored his order for them to return to work.
Births1641 - John Hathorne, magistrate (d. 1717)1802 - Niels Henrik Abel, Norwegian mathematician1811 - Thomas Ambroise, composer (d. 1896)1813 - Ivar Aasen, Norwegian poet and the inventor of Nynorsk1842 - Ferdinand Keller, painter (d. 1922)1850 - Guy de Maupassant, author (d. 1893)1862 - Joseph Merrick, deformed celebrity (d. 1890)1866 - Carl Harries, chemist (d. 1923)1877 - Tom Thomson, painter (d. 1917)1889 - Conrad Aiken, American writer (d. 1973)1890 - Erich Kleiber, conductor (d. 1956)1906:*John Huston, director (d. 1987)*Wassily Leontief, economist (d. 1999)1908 - Harold Holt, seventeenth Prime Minister of Australia (d. 1967)1911 - Robert Taylor, actor (d. 1969)1930 - Neil Armstrong, astronaut1935 - John Saxon, actor1937 - Herb Brooks, ice hockey coach (d. 2003)1939 - Princess Irene of the Netherlands1940 - Roman Gabriel, professional football player1943 - Nelson Briles, Major League Baseball player (d. 2005)1946:*Loni Anderson, actress*Jimmy Webb, composer, musician1947 - Rick Derringer, rock and roll musician1951 - Airto Moreira, Brazilian percussionist1953 - Rick Mahler, Major League Baseball player (d. 2005)1956 - Maureen McCormick, actress, The Brady Bunch1961 - Clayton Rohner, actor1962 - Patrick Ewing, basketball player1964 - Adam Yauch, musician1971 - Jeff Somers, author1975 - Kajol Mukherjee, actress1977 - Mark Mulder, baseball pitcher1981:*Carl Crawford, Major League Baseball player*Rachel Scott, victim of the Columbine High School massacre (d. 1999)*Kō Shibasaki, Japanese singer and actress1983 - Sararu Mihai Emanuel, pornstar
Deaths882 - King Louis III of France1633 - Archbishop George Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury (b. 1562)1895 - Friedrich Engels, socialist philosopher1923 - Vatroslav Jagic Croatian slavist (b. 1835)1929 - Millicent Fawcett, British suffragist and feminist (b. 1847)1955 - Carmen Miranda, actress, singer1960 - Arthur Meighen, ninth Prime Minister of Canada1962 - Marilyn Monroe, American actress1984 - Richard Burton, British actor1991 - Paul Brown, Pro Football Hall of Fame coach (b. 1908)2000 - Sir Alec Guinness, 86, British actor 2002 - Josh Ryan Evans, actor (b. 1982) 2002 - Chick Hearn, pro-basketball announcer
Holidays and observancesBurkina Faso - Independence DayCroatia - Victory day and National Thanksgiving Day
External links BBC: On This Day
August 4 - August 6 - July 5 - September 5 -- listing of all days
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