February 5: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

February 5 is the 36th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. There are 329 days remaining (330 in leap years).

Events

• 1576 - Henry of Navarre converts to Roman Catholicism in order to ensure his right to the throne of France.
• 1631 - Roger Williams emigrates to Boston.
• 1778 - South Carolina becomes the first state to ratify the Articles of Confederation.
• 1782 - Spanish defeat British forces and capture Minorca.
• 1846 - The Oregon Spectator becomes the first newspaper on the Pacific coast of the United States.
• 1859 - Wallachia and Moldavia are united under Alexander John Cuza under the name Romania (see December 1 1918 for the final unification, Transylvania and other regions were still missing at this time).
• 1881 - Phoenix, Arizona is incorporated.
• 1885 - King Léopold II of Belgium establishes the Congo as a personal possession.
• 1917 - The current constitution of Mexico is adopted, establishing a federal republic with powers separated into independent executive, legislative, and judicial branches.
• 1917 - The Congress of the United States passes a law, over President Woodrow Wilson's veto, banning most Asian immigration to the United States.
• 1919 - Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and D.W. Griffith launch United Artists.
• 1922 - DeWitt and Lila Wallace publish the first issue of Reader's Digest. (Some sources say February 7.)
• 1924 - The Royal Greenwich Observatory begin broadcasting the hourly time signals known as the Greenwich Time Signal or the "BBC pips".
• 1929 - "They'll Do It Every Time", a comic strip still in syndication as of 2005, debuts in a San Francisco newspaper.
• 1936 - Charlie Chaplin releases the last ever silent movie, Modern Times.
• 1937 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposes a plan to enlarge the Supreme Court of the United States.
• 1945 - World War II: General Douglas MacArthur returns to Manila.
• 1946 - The Chondoist Chongu Party is founded in North Korea.
• 1953 - The movie Peter Pan premieres at the Roxy Theatre in New York City.
• 1958 - Gamel Abdel Nasser is nominated to be the first president of the United Arab Republic.
• 1958 - A hydrogen bomb known as the Tybee Bomb is lost by the US Air Force off the coast of Savannah, Georgia, never to be recovered.
• 1961 - The Sunday Telegraph publishes its first issue.
• 1962 - French President Charles De Gaulle calls for allowing Algeria to be an independent nation.
• 1968 - The Battle of Khe Sanh of the Vietnam War begins.
• 1971 - Apollo 14 lands on the Moon.
• 1972 - Bob Douglas becomes the first African American elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame.
• 1974 - John Murtha becomes the first Vietnam War veteran elected to the Congress of the United States.
• 1978 - The Blizzard of 1978, one of the worst Nor'easters ever to hit New England, forms.
• 1988 - Manuel Noriega is indicted on drug smuggling and money laundering charges.
• 1988 - Comic Relief hold the first "Red Nose Day", which raises £15 million in the United Kingdom for charity.
• 1991 - A Michigan court bars Dr. Jack Kevorkian from assisting in suicides.
• 1994 - Byron De La Beckwith is convicted of the 1963 murder of civil rights leader Medgar Evers.
• 1997 - The so-called Big Three banks in Switzerland announce the creation of a $71 million fund to aid Holocaust survivors and their families.
• 1997 - Morgan Stanley and Dean Witter investment banks announce a $10 billion merger.
• 1999 - Mike Tyson is sentenced to a year's imprisonment for the August 31, 1998 assault on two people.
• 2001 - Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman announce that they have separated.
• 2003 - U.S. plan to invade Iraq: Colin Powell addresses the UN Security Council on Iraq.
• 2004 - Twenty-three Chinese people drown when a group of 35 cockle-pickers are trapped by rising tides in Morecambe Bay, England. Twenty-one bodies are recovered.
• 2004 - Rebels from the Revolutionary Artibonite Resistance Front capture the city of Gonaïves, starting the 2004 Haiti rebellion.

• 976 - Sanjo, Emperor of Japan (d. 1017)
• 1505 - Aegidius Tschudi, Swiss historian (d. 1572)
• 1519 - René of Châlon, Prince of the House of Orange (d. 1544)
• 1534 - Giovanni de' Bardi, Italian writer, composer, and soldier (d. 1612)
• 1589 - Esteban Manuel de Villegas, Spanish poet (d. 1669)
• 1626 - Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de Sévigné, French author (d. 1696)
• 1650 - Anne-Jules, 2nd duc de Noailles, French general (d. 1708)
• 1703 - Gilbert Tennent, Irish-born religious leader (d. 1764)
• 1725 - James Otis, American lawyer and patriot (d. 1783)
• 1788 - Robert Peel, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1850)
• 1795 - Wilhelm Karl Ritter von Haidinger, Austrian mineralogist (d. 1871)
• 1804 - Johan Ludvig Runeberg, Finnish poet (d. 1877)
• 1808 - Carl Spitzweg, German painter (d. 1885)
• 1810 - Ole Bull, Norwegian violinist (d. 1880)
• 1837 - Dwight L. Moody, American evangelist (d. 1899)
• 1840 - John Boyd Dunlop, Scottish inventor (d. 1921)
• 1848 - Joris-Karl Huysmans, French author (d. 1907)
• 1848 - Belle Starr, American outlaw (d. 1889)
• 1878 - André Citroën, French automobile pioneer (d. 1935)
• 1880 - Gabriel Voisin, French aviation pioneer (d. 1973)
• 1889 - Ernest Tyldesley, English cricketer (d. 1962)
• 1900 - Adlai Stevenson, American politician (d. 1965)
• 1906 - John Carradine, American actor (d. 1988)
• 1908 - Daisy and Violet Hilton, English conjoined twin actresses (d. 1969)
• 1910 - Francisco Varallo, Argentine footballer
• 1911 - Jussi Björling, Swedish tenor (d. 1960)
• 1914 - William S. Burroughs, American author (d. 1997)
• 1914 - Alan Lloyd Hodgkin, British scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1998)
• 1915 - Robert Hofstadter, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1990)
• 1918 - Tim Holt, American actor (d. 1973)
• 1919 - Red Buttons, American actor
• 1919 - Andreas Papandreou, Greek politician (d. 1996)
• 1921 - John Pritchard, English conductor (d. 1989)
• 1923 - Claude King, American musician
• 1927 - Ruth Fertel, American entrepreneur (d. 2002)
• 1928 - Andrew Greeley, American priest and novelist
• 1929 - Luc Ferrari, French composer (d. 2005)
• 1929 - Fred Sinowatz, Austrian politician
• 1929 - Al Worthington, baseball player
• 1930 - John A. Gambling, American radio show host (d. 2004)
• 1933 - Jörn Donner, Finnish writer, film director, producer and politician
• 1934 - Don Cherry, Canadian NHL Hockey player, and "CBC's Hockey Night in Canada" Commentator
• 1934 - Hank Aaron, baseball player
• 1937 - Stuart Damon, American actor
• 1940 - H.R. Giger, Swiss artist
• 1941 - Jane Bryant Quinn, American journalist
• 1941 - David Selby, American actor
• 1941 - Kaspar Villiger, Swiss Federal Councilor
• 1942 - Roger Staubach, American football player
• 1943 - Nolan Bushnell, American video game pioneer
• 1943 - Michael Mann, American film director, writer, and producer
• 1943 - Craig Morton, American football player
• 1944 - Al Kooper, American musician
• 1945 - Charlotte Rampling, English actress
• 1947 - Darrell Waltrip, American race car driver
• 1948 - Christopher Guest, American actor, writer, director, and composer
• 1948 - Barbara Hershey, American actress
• 1948 - Errol Morris, American film director
• 1948 - V. Alexander Stefan, American physicist, educator, and writer
• 1949 - Nigel Olsson, drummer
• 1962 - Jennifer Jason Leigh, American actress
• 1964 - Laura Linney, American actress
• 1964 - Duff McKagen, American musician (Guns N'Roses)
• 1965 - Gheorghe Hagi, Romanian footballer
• 1966 - Rok Petrovič, Slovenian skier (d. 1993)
• 1968 - Roberto Alomar, baseball player
• 1969 - Bobby Brown, American singer
• 1971 - Sara Evans, American singer
• 1972 - Mary, Crown Princess of Denmark
• 1977 - Ben Ainslie, British sailor
• 1977 - Ahmad Merritt, American football player
• 1984 - Carlos Tévez, Argentinine footballer
• 1985 - Cristiano Ronaldo, Portuguese footballer
• 1989 - Jeremy Sumpter, American actor

• 995 - William IV, Duke of Aquitaine (b. 937)
• 1520 - Sten Sture the Younger, regent of Sweden (b. 1493)
• 1578 - Giambattista Moroni, Italian painter
• 1705 - Philipp Jakob Spener, German theologian (b. 1635)
• 1766 - Leopold Josef Graf Daun, Austrian field marshal (b. 1705)
• 1775 - Eusebius Amort, German Catholic theologian (b. 1692)
• 1790 - William Cullen, Scottish physician and chemist (b. 1710)
• 1807 - Pasquale Paoli, Corsican patriot and military leader (b. 1725)
• 1818 - King Charles XIII of Sweden (b. 1748)
• 1881 - Thomas Carlyle, Scottish writer and historian (b. 1795)
• 1915 - Ross Barnes, baseball player (b. 1850)
• 1922 - Slavoljub Eduard Penkala, Croatian inventor (b. 1871)
• 1922 - Christiaan De Wet, South African general
• 1937 - Lou Andreas-Salome, Russian-born writer (b. 1861)
• 1946 - George Arliss, English actor (b. 1868)
• 1962 - Jacques Ibert, French composer (b. 1890)
• 1966 - Ludwig Binswanger, Swiss psychiatrist (b. 1881)
• 1967 - Leon Leonwood Bean, American department store founder (b. 1872)
• 1970 - Rudy York, baseball player (b. 1913)
• 1972 - Marianne Moore, American poet (b. 1887)
• 1976 - Rudy Pompilli, American musician (Bill Haley and His Comets) (b. 1926)
• 1977 - Oskar Klein, Swedish physicist (b. 1894)
• 1981 - Ella Grasso, Governor of Connecticut (b. 1919)
• 1991 - Dean Jagger, American actor (b. 1903)
• 1992 - Miguel Rolando Covian, Brazilian physiologist (b. 1913)
• 1993 - Joseph L. Mankiewicz, American writer, producer, and director (b. 1909)
• 1995 - Doug McClure, American actor (b. 1935)
• 1997 - Pamela Harriman, English-born American diplomat (b. 1920)
• 1999 - Wassily Leontief, Russian economist, Bank of Sweden Prize winner (b. 1906)
• 2003 - Helge Boes, American Central Intelligence Agency officer
• 2005 - Gnassingbe Eyadema, President of Togo (b. 1937)

• Catholicism - Feast day of St Agatha.

February 4 - February 6 - January 5 - March 5 -- listing of all days