March 5

Events 
 Up to 1900 
 1046 – Naser Khosrow begins the seven-year Middle Eastern journey which he would later describe in his book Safarnameh.
 1279 – The Livonian Order is defeated in the Battle of Aizkraukle by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
 1496 – England King Henry VII issued letters patern to John Cabot and his sons, authorizing them to discover of unknown lands.
 1616 – Nicolaus Copernicus' book De revolutionibus orbium coelestium is banned by the Roman Catholic Church.
 1689 – Daniel Finch, 2nd Earl of Nottingham is named Secretary of State for the Northern Department.
 1766 – Antonio de Ulloa, the first Spanish governor of Louisiana, arrives in New Orleans.
 1770 – Boston Massacre: Five Americans, including Crispus Attucks, are killed by British troops in an event that would help start the American Revolutionary War five years later.
 1784 – Thomas Townshend, 1st Viscount Sydney is named President of the Board of Trade.
 1793 – French troops are defeated by Austrian forces and Liège is recaptured.
 1811 – Peninsular War: A French force under command of Marshal Victor is heavily defeated while trying to prevent an English-Spanish-Portuguese army from ending the Siege of Cadiz in the Battle of Barrosa.
 1821 – James Monroe is inaugurated for a second term as President of the United States.
 1824 – First Burmese War: The British officially declares war on Burma.
 1836 – Samuel Colt makes the first production-model revolver (.34-caliber).
 1842 – Over 500 Mexican troops led by Rafael Vasquez invade Texas, briefly occupy San Antonio and then head back to the Rio Grande.
 1848 – Louis Antoine Garnier-Pages is named French minister of Finance.
 1849 – Zachary Taylor is inaugurated as the 12th President of the United States.
 1850 – The Britannia Bridge, a railway bridge, linking the Isle of Anglesey to mainland Wales across the Menai Strait, opens.
 1860 – Parma, Tuscany, Modena and Romagna vote in referenda to join Kingdom of Sardinia.
 1861 – The "Stars and Bars" is adopted as the flag of the Confederate States of America.
 1861 – Montgomery Blair is named 23rd Postmaster General of the United States by Abraham Lincoln
 1868 – A court of impeachment is organized in the United States Senate to hear charges against President Andrew Johnson.
 1868 – Mefistofele, an opera by Arrigo Boito premieres at La Scala.
 1872 – George Westinghouse patents the air brake.
 1877 – Rutherford B. Hayes is publicly inaugurated as the 19th President of the United States (he was privately inaugurated on March 3).
 1878 – Manchester United Football Club is founded under the name of Newton Heath LYR FC.
 1888 – Samuel Teleki and Ludwig von Hoehnal reach Lake Rudolf, present-day Lake Turkana in the Great Rift Valley. It lies in what is now Kenya.
 1894 – Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery becomes First Lord of the Treasury.

 1901 - 1950 
 1904 – Nikola Tesla, in Electrical World and Engineer, describes the process of ball lightning formation.
 1905 – Russian troops begin to retreat from Mukden, Manchuria after losing 100,000 troops in three days.
 1907 – The second Duma opens in St. Petersburg, Russia and 40,000 demonstrators have to be dispersed by Russian troops.
 1912 – Italian forces are the first to use airships for military purposes, using them for reconnaissance behind Turkish lines.
 1915 – World War I: LZ 33, a zeppelin, is damaged by enemy fire and stranded south of Ostend.
 1916 – Spanish football club Real Club Deportivo Mallorca founded.
 1916 – Off Santos, Brazil, Spanish luxury liner Principe de Asturias hits a rock and sinks within five minutes, killing 445 people.
 1917 – Woodrow Wilson is inaugurated for a second term as President of the United States.
 1918 – Bolshevist Russia moves the national capital from Petrograd to Moscow.
 1919 – The main railway station in Helsinki opens.
 1924 – Shefqet Verlaci becomes Prime Minister of Albania.
 1929 – LanChile airline begins operations.
 1931 – Daniel Salamanca Urey is named President of Bolivia.
 1933 – Great Depression: President Franklin D. Roosevelt declares a "bank holiday", closing all United States banks and freezing all financial transactions.
 1933 – In Germany, the Nazis win 44 percent of the vote in parliamentary elections.
 1936 – First flight of fighter airplane Spitfire Type 300.
 1940 – Members of Soviet politbiuro sign an order for the execution of 25,700 Polish intelligentsia, including 22000 Polish POW, known also as Katyn massacre.
 1943 – First flight of Gloster Meteor jet aircraft in Britain.
 1946 – Winston Churchill uses the phrase "Iron Curtain" in his speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri.
 1946 – The Hungarian Communists and Social Democrats co-found the left bloc.
 1948 – US rocket flies a record 4800 km/h to 126 km height.
 1949 – The Jharkhand Party is founded in India.

 1951 - 2000 
 1953 – Both Josef Stalin and Sergei Prokofiev die in Soviet Union.
 1955 – President of Lithuania, Antanas Merkys dies, after having been imprisoned and deported to the Soviet Union.
 1956 – Ernie Terrell becomes the WBA world heavyweight champion, beating Eddie Machen.
 1956 – "King Kong" first televised.
 1958 – Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region is established.
 1958 – Explorer 2 spacecraft launches, fails to reach Earth orbit.
 1960 – Alberto Korda takes the famous "Guerrillero Heroico" photograph of Che Guevara.
 1960 – Elvis Presley is discharged from a 2-year hitch in the United States Army.
 1963 – Country singer Patsy Cline dies in a plane crash.
 1964 – Atlanta Mayor Ivan Allen Jr announces a baseball team is moving there.
 1964 – Ceylon declares emergency crisis due to unrest.
 1965 – First performance of Walter Piston's Eighth Symphony.
 1966 – A BOAC Boeing 707 jet crashes on Mount Fuji, Japan killing 124
 1966 – In Luxembourg, Udo Jürgens wins the eleventh Eurovision Song Contest for Austria.
 1966 – Bob Seagren vaults 5.19m, an indoor world record.
 1968 – US launches Solar Explorer B, aka Explorer 37 from Wallops Island to study the Sun.
 1970 – A nuclear non-proliferation treaty goes into effect after ratification by 43 nations.
 1970 – Dubnium atoms first detected conclusively.
 1971 – First live performance of Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven."
 1973 – Two Spanish aircraft collide in mid-air over France, killing 68 people.
 1973 – Donald DeFreeze, future Symbionese Liberation Army leader, escapes from Vacaville Prison.
 1974 – Yom Kippur War: Israeli forces withdrew from the west bank of the Suez Canal.
 1974 – "Candide", by Leonard Bernstein, opens at Broadway Theatre in NYC for 740 performances.
 1976 – British pound falls below $2 US for the first time.
 1978 – Landsat 3 is launched from Vandenberg AFB in California.
 1979 – Detection equipment picks up a gamma ray burst originating from the Large Magellanic Cloud, leading to the discovery of soft gamma repeaters.
 1979 – Voyager 1's closest approach to Jupiter, 172000 miles.
 1980 – Earth satellites record gamma rays from remnants of supernova N-49.
 1981 – Cannibal Alferd Packer pardoned posthumously.
 1982 – SNL star John Belushi dies of a drug overdose in his hotel room.
 1982 – Venera 14, a Soviet satellite arrives at the planet Venus.
 1983 – Bob Hawke becomes Australian prime minister after defeating Malcolm Fraser in Australian elections.
 1983 – In the oldest regular match in international rugby union, Scotland achieves its most recent away win over England to-date, winning 22–12 at Twickenham Stadium in London.
 1984 – 6,000 miners in the United Kingdom begin their strike at Cortonwood Colliery.
 1985 – The body of undercover DEA agent Enrique Camarena is found.
 1988 – Constitution of Turks and Caicos Islands restored and revised.
 1991 – Iraq releases all Gulf War prisoners
 1993 – Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson is banned from international competition for life after testing positive for banned substances for the second time.
 1998 – NASA announces that the Clementine probe orbiting the Moon has found enough water to support a human colony.
 1998 – NASA announces the choice of United States Air Force Lt. Col. Eileen Collins as the first woman commander of a space shuttle mission.
 1999 – Paul Okalik is elected first Premier of Nunavut.

 From 2001 
 2001 – In Mecca, 35 Muslim pilgrims are crushed to death during the annual Hajj pilgrimage.
 2001 – In Santee, California, a school massacre occurs at Santana High School, leaving 2 dead and 15 wounded.
 2002 – MTV begins airing The Osbournes.
 2003 – University of Manchester and UMIST announce agreement to merge operations.
 2003 – Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks provokes controversy in the U.S. by stating that the band was "ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas."
 2003 – Nature withdraws several papers as a result of the Jan Hendrik Schön scandal.
 2006 – The BBC's major nature documentary series "Planet Earth" is broadcast for the first time.
 2013 – President of Venezuela Hugo Chávez dies, after a Presidency of over 14 years, of complications from cancer.

 Births 
 Up to 1800 
 1133 – King Henry II of England (d. 1189)
 1324 – King David II of Scotland (d. 1371)
 1326 – King Louis I of Hungary (d. 1382)
 1512 – Gerardus Mercator, Flemish map maker (d. 1594)
 1563 – John Coke, English politician (d. 1644)
 1575 – William Oughtred, English mathematician (d. 1660)
 1585 – John George I, Elector of Saxony (d. 1656)
 1658 – Antoine Laumet de la Mothe, sieur de Cadillac, French explorer (d. 1730)
 1685 – George Frideric Handel, German composer (d. 1759)
 1693 – Johann Jakob Wettstein, Swiss theologian (d. 1754)
 1696 – Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Italian painter (d. 1770)
 1703 – Vasily Kirillovich Trediakovsky, Russian poet (d. 1768)
 1713 – Edward Cornwallis, English military officer (d. 1776)
 1713 – Frederick Cornwallis, Archbishop of Canterbury (d. 1783)
 1723 – Princess Mary of Great Britain (d. 1773)
 1739 – Benjamin Ruggles Woodbridge, American physician and statesman (d. 1819)
 1756 – Nathaniel Alexander, 13th Governor of North Carolina (d. 1808)
 1794 – Jacques Babinet, French physicist (d. 1872)

 1801 – 1900 
 1815 – John Wentworth, American politician (d. 1888)
 1832 – Isaac Israel Hayes, American physician and polar explorer (d. 1881)
 1836 – Charles Goodnight, American cattle rancher (d. 1929)
 1853 – Howard Pyle, American writer and illustrator (d. 1911)
 1855 – Archduchess Sophie of Austria (d. 1857)
 1858 – José Relvas, Prime Minister of Portugal (d. 1929)
 1862 – Siegbert Tarrasch, German chess player (d. 1934)
 1867 – Louis-Alexandre Taschereau, Premier of Quebec (d. 1952)
 1869 – Michael von Faulhaber, German cardinal (d. 1952)
 1870 – Frank Norris, American writer (d. 1902)
 1871 – Rosa Luxemburg, German Socialist revolutionary (d. 1919)
 1873 – Olav Bjaaland, Norwegian explorer and cross-country skier (d. 1961)
 1874 – Henry Travers, British actor (d. 1965)
 1879 – William Henry Beveridge, British economist (d. 1963)
 1882 – Arthur Hussey, American golfer (d. 1915)
 1886 – Dong Biwu, Chinese politician (d. 1975)
 1887 – Heitor Villa-Lobos, Brazilian composer (d. 1959)
 1888 – Jeff Tesreau, American baseball player (d. 1946)
 1890 – Wilhelm Boden, German politician (d. 1961)
 1893 – Konstantin Muraviev, Prime Minister of Bulgaria (d. 1973)
 1897 – Set Persson, Swedish Communist politician (d. 1960)
 1898 – Misao Okawa, Japanese supercentenarian, oldest-living person (d. 2015)
 1898 – Soong May-ling, First Lady of the Republic of China (d. 2003)
 1898 – Zhou Enlai, Chinese Communist politician (d. 1976)
 1900 – Anna Henderson, American supercentenarian (d. 2014)

 1901 - 1950 
 1901 – Louis Kahn, Estonian-American architect (d. 1974)
 1904 – Karl Rahner, German theologian (d. 1984)
 1908 – Rex Harrison, British actor (d. 1990)
 1908 – Irving Fiske, American writer and playwright (d. 1990)
 1910 – Momofuko Ando, Taiwanese businessman (d. 2007)
 1910 – Ennio Flaiano, Italian writer, journalist and screenwriter (d. 1972)
 1912 – Jack Marshall, 28th Prime Minister of New Zealand (d. 1988)
 1914 – Philip Farkas, American horn player and teacher (d. 1992)
 1915 – Henry Hicks, Canadian politician, 16th Premier of Nova Scotia (d. 1990)
 1915 – Laurent Schwartz, French mathematician (d. 2002)
 1918 – Milt Schmidt, Canadian ice hockey player, coach and manager
 1918 – James Tobin, American economist, Nobel laureate (d. 2002)
 1920 – José Aboulker, Algerian surgeon and activist (d. 2009) 
 1922 – Pier Paolo Pasolini, Italian director (d. 1975)
 1923 – Andrea Aureli, Italian actor
 1924 – Jacques Vergès, French lawyer (d. 2013)
 1927 – Jack Cassidy, American actor (d. 1976)
 1929 – Erik Carlsson, Swedish rally driver (d. 2015)
 1929 – J. B. Lenoir, American blues guitarist and singer-songwriter (d. 1967)
 1930 – John Ashley, NHL referee (d. 2008)
 1930 – Del Crandall, American baseball player
 1931 – Jerrie Cobb, American aviator (d. 2019)
 1933 – Don L. Anderson, American geophysicist (d. 2014)
 1933 – Walter Kasper, German cardinal
 1933 – Evgeni Vasiukov, Russian chess player (d. 2018)
 1933 – Tommy Tucker, American blues singer and guitarist (d. 1982)
 1934 – Daniel Kahneman, Israeli economist
 1934 – James B. Sikking, American actor
 1935 – Philip K. Chapman, Australian astronaut and scientist
 1936 – Canaan Banana, 1st President of Zimbabwe (d. 2003)
 1937 – Olusegun Obasanjo, two-time former President of Nigeria
 1938 – Lynn Margulis, American evolutionary biologist (d. 2011)
 1938 – Fred Williamson, American football player, actor, director, producer and screenwriter
 1940 – Josef Piontek, German footballer
 1940 – John W. Carlin, 40th Governor of Kansas
 1942 – Felipe Gonzalez, former Prime Minister of Spain
 1942 – Mike Resnick, American science fiction writer
 1943 – Lucio Battisti, Italian singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 1998)
 1943 – Christian Führer, German pastor and activist (d. 2014) 
 1944 – Roy Gutman, American journalist
 1946 – Murray Head, British actor and singer
 1947 – John Kitzhaber, former Governor of Oregon
 1948 – Elaine Paige, English singer and actress
 1948 – Eddy Grant, Guyanese-British musician
 1948 – Jan van Beveren, Dutch footballer (d. 2011)
 1948 – Paquirri, Spanish bullfighter (d. 1984)
 1949 – Franz Josef Jung, German politician

 1951 – 1975 
 1952 – Alan Clark, British musician (Dire Straits)
 1952 – Fernando de Piedade Dios dos Santos, former Prime Minister of Angola
 1953 – Michael Sandel, American political philosopher
 1954 – Steve Prestwich, English-Australian musician and songwriter (d. 2011)
 1955 – Penn Jillette, American illusionist, comedian, musician and writer
 1956 – Marco Paolini, Italian stage actor and writer
 1956 – Teena Marie, American singer-songwriter (d. 2010)
 1957 – Mark E. Smith, English musician (d. 2018)
 1958 – Andy Gibb, English-born Australian singer and teen idol (d. 1988)
 1959 – Vazgen Sargsyan, Prime Minister of Armenia (d. 1999)
 1959 – David Fury, American television and producer
 1962 – The Proclaimers, Scottish singers and musicians
 1963 – Lotta Engberg, Swedish singer
 1963 – Joel Osteen, American televangelist 
 1964 – Bertrand Cantat, French singer-songwriter
 1966 – Oh Eun-Sun, South Korean mountaineer
 1968 – Gordon Bajnai, former Prime Minister of Hungary
 1968 – Theresa Villiers, British politician
 1970 – John Frusciante, American musician (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
 1970 – Lisa Robin Kelly, American actress (d. 2013)
 1972 – Brian Grant, American basketball player
 1972 – Luca Turilli, Italian guitarist and songwriter
 1973 – Yannis Anastasiou, Greek footballer
 1974 – Kevin Connolly, American actor and comedian
 1974 – Matt Lucas, British actor and comedian
 1974 – Jens Jeremies, German footballer
 1974 – Eva Mendes, American actress
 1975 – Nelly Arcan, Canadian writer (d. 2009)

 From 1976 
 1976 – Sarunas Jasikevicius, Lithuanian basketball player
 1977 – Wally Szczerbiak, American basketball player
 1978 – Kimberly McCullough, American actress
 1978 – Carlos Ochoa, Mexican footballer
 1981 – Andreas Wiig, Norwegian snowboarder
 1982 – Dan Carter, New Zealand rugby union player
 1982 – Nikki Walker, Scottish rugby union player
 1982 – Giorgia Palmas, Italian television personality and model
 1984 – Aarthi Agarwal, Indian actress (d. 2015)
 1985 – Kenichi Matsuyama, Japanese actor
 1985 – David Marshall, Scottish footballer
 1985 – Brad Mills, American baseball player
 1986 – Ellen Whitaker, British equestrian showjumper
 1987 – Anna Chakvetadze, Russian tennis player
 1987 – Ishmael Miller, English footballer
 1988 – Bjarni Vidarsson, Icelandic footballer
 1989 – Kensuke Nagai, Japanese footballer
 1989 – Sterling Knight, American actor and singer
 1989 – Jake Lloyd, American actor
 1990 – Danny Drinkwater, English footballer
 1991 – Michael Hayböck, Austrian ski jumper 
 1993 – Harry Maguire, English footballer
 1994 – Daria Gavrilova, Russian tennis player
 1999 – Madison Beer, American singer

 Deaths 
 Up to 1900 
 254 – Pope Lucius I (b. 200)
 1534 – Antonio da Correggio, Italian painter (b. 1489)
 1539 – Nuno da Cunha, Portuguese admiral and politician (b. 1487)
 1592 – Michael Coxcie, Flemish painter (b. 1499)
 1611 – Shimazu Yoshihisa, Japanese warlord and samurai (b. 1533)
 1622 – Ranuccio I Farnese, Duke of Parma (b. 1569)
 1695 – Henry Wharton, English writer (b. 1664)
 1770 – Crispus Attucks, American revolutionary figure
 1776 – Yeongjo of Joseon of Korea (b. 1694)
 1778 – Thomas Arne, English composer (b. 1710)
 1815 – Franz Mesmer, German physician and astrologer (b. 1734)
 1827 – Pierre-Simon Laplace, French mathematician (b. 1749)
 1827 – Alessandro Volta, Italian physicist and inventor (b. 1745)
 1895 – Nikolai Leskov, Russian writer (b. 1831)

 1901 – 2000 
 1925 – Jonas Jensen, Danish mathematician (b. 1859)
 1926 – Clement Ader, French engineer (b. 1841)
 1929 – David Dunbar Buick, Scottish-born American engineer, inventor and industrialist (b. 1854)
 1940 – Cai Yuanpei, Chinese educator (b. 1868)
 1944 – Max Jacob, French poet and writer (b. 1876)
 1947 – Alfredo Casella, Italian composer (b. 1883)
 1950 – Edgar Lee Masters, American poet, biographer and dramatist (b. 1868)
 1953 – Herman J. Mankiewicz, American screenwriter (b. 1897)
 1953 – Sergei Prokofiev, Russian composer (b. 1891)
 1953 – Joseph Stalin, Georgian leader of the Soviet Union (b. 1879)
 1955 – Antanas Merkys, Lithuanian politician (b. 1888)
 1963 – Patsy Cline, American singer (b. 1932)
 1963 – Cowboy Copas, American singer (b. 1913)
 1963 – Hawkshaw Hawkins, American singer (b. 1921)
 1965 – Chen Cheng, Chinese politician (b. 1897)
 1965 – Pepper Martin, American baseball player (b. 1904)
 1966 – Anna Akhmatova, Russian poet (b. 1889)
 1967 – Mohammed Mossadegh, Iranian Prime Minister (b. 1882)
 1967 – Georges Vanier, 19th Governor General of Canada (b. 1888)
 1974 – Sol Hurok, American impresario (b. 1888)
 1976 – Otto Tief, Prime Minister of Estonia (b. 1889)
 1977 – Tom Pryce, Welsh racing driver (b. 1949)
 1980 – Winifred Wagner, German opera producer (b. 1897)
 1980 – Jay Silverheels, Canadian actor (b. 1912)
 1982 – John Belushi, American actor (b. 1949)
 1984 – Pierre Cochereau, French organist and composer (b. 1924)
 1984 – Tito Cobbi, Italian baritone (b. 1915)
 1990 – Edmund Conen, German footballer (b. 1914)
 1990 – Gary Merrill, American actor (b. 1915)
 1995 – Vivian Stanshall, British musician (b. 1943)
 1999 – Richard Kiley, American actor (b. 1922)
 2000 – Lolo Ferrari, French dancer, singer and pornographic actress (b. 1963)

 From 2001 
 2004 – Masanori Tokita, Japanese footballer (b. 1925)
 2006 – Milan Babic, Serbian politician (b. 1956)
 2008 – Joseph Weizenbaum, German-American computer science professor (b. 1923)
 2010 – Philip Langridge, English operatic tenor (b. 1939)
 2011 – Alberto Granado, Argentine biochemist, writer and travel companion of Che Guevara (b. 1922)
 2012 – Robert B. Sherman, American songwriter (b. 1925)
 2013 – Hugo Chávez, President of Venezuela (b. 1954)
 2013 – Paul Bearer, American professional wrestler and manager (b. 1954)
 2013 – Dieter Pfaff, German actor (b. 1947)
 2014 – Leopoldo Maria Panero, Spanish poet (b. 1948)
 2014 – Geoff Edwards, American actor and presenter (b. 1931)
 2015 – Edward Egan, American cardinal (b. 1932)
 2015 – Jim McCann, Irish musician (b. 1944)
 2015 – Vlada Divljan, Serbian musician (b. 1958)
 2016 – Hassan al-Turabi, Sudanese religious and political leader (b. 1932)
 2016 – Ray Tomlinson, American computer programmer (b. 1941)
 2016 – Al Wistert, American football player (b. 1920)
 2016 – Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Austrian cellist (b. 1929)
 2016 – James Douglas, American actor (b. 1929)
 2017 – Anthony C. Beilenson, American politician (b. 1932)
 2017 – Douglas Henry, American politician (b. 1926)
 2017 – Florence S. Jacobsen, American Mormon leader and missionary (b. 1913)
 2017 – Jay Lynch, American cartoonist (b. 1945)
 2018 – Trevor Baylis, British inventor (b. 1937)
 2018 – John Hall Buchanan Jr., American politician (b. 1928)
 2018 – Tomas Aguon Camacho, Northern Marianas Roman Catholic prelate (b. 1933)
 2018 – Kjerstin Dellert, Swedish opera singer (b. 1925)
 2018 – André S. Labarthe, French actor and film director (b. 1931)
 2018 – Uri Lubrani, Israeli diplomat and military official (b. 1926)
 2018 – Jam Saqi, Pakistani politician (b. 1944)
 2018 – Helmut Maucher, German businessman (b. 1927)
 2018 – Stephan Tanneberger, German oncologist and chemist (b. 1935)
 2018 – Hayden White, American historian (b. 1928)
 2019 – Chu Shijian, Chinese businessman (b. 1928)
 2019 – Jacques Loussier, French businessman (b. 1934)

 Observances 
 Custom Chief's Day (Vanuatu)
 Lei Feng Day (China)
 National Tree Planting Day (Iran)
 St. Piran's Day (Cornwall)

March 05