05 March History
- 1624 - Class-based legislation is passed in the colony of Virginia, exempting the upper class from punishment by whipping.
- 1766 - Antonio de Ulloa, the first Spanish governor of Louisiana, arrives in New Orleans.
- 1793 - Austrian troops crush the French and recapture Liege.
- 1821 - James Monroe becomes the first president to be inaugurated on March 5, only because the 4th was a Sunday.
- 1905 - Russians begin to retreat from Mukden in Manchuria, China.
- 1912 - The Italians become the first to use dirigibles for military purposes, using them for reconnaissance flights behind Turkish lines west of Tripoli.
- 1918 - The Soviets move the capital of Russia from Petrograd to Moscow.
- 1928 - Hitler's National Socialists win the majority vote in Bavaria.
- 1933 - Newly inaugurated President Franklin D. Roosevelt halts the trading of gold and declares a bank holiday.
- 1933 - Hitler and Nationalist allies win the Reichstag majority. It will be the last free election in Germany until after World War II.
- 1943 - In desperation due to war losses, fifteen and sixteen year olds are called up for military service in the German army.
- 1946 - In Fulton, Missouri, Winston Churchill tells a crowd that "an iron curtain has descended on the Continent [of Europe]."
- 1956 - The U.S. Supreme Court affirms the ban on segregation in public schools in Brown vs. Board of Education.
- 1969 - Gustav Heinemann is elected West German President.
- 1976 - Britain gives up on the Ulster talks and decides to retain rule in Northern Ireland indefinitely.
- 1984 - The U.S. Supreme Court rules that cities have the right to display the Nativity scene as part of their Christmas display.
05 March Birthdays
- 1326 - Louis I (the Great), King of Hungary.
- 1574 - William Oughtred, mathematician and inventor of the slide rule.
- 1824 - Elisha Harris, U.S. physician and founder of the American Public Health Association.
- 1824 - James Merritt Ives, lithographer for Currier and Ives.
- 1853 - Howard Pyle, writer and illustrator (The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood).
- 1870 - Frank Norris, novelist (McTeague, The Octopus).
- 1887 - Heitor Villa-Lobos, Brazillian composer.
- 1938 - Lynn Margulis, biologist.
- 1948 - Leslie Marmon Silko, writer (Ceremony).