5 May Events

May 5 is the 125th day of the year (126th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 240 days remaining until the end of the year. This date is slightly more likely to fall on a Tuesday, Thursday or Saturday (58 in 400 years each) than on Sunday or Monday (57), and slightly less likely to occur on a Wednesday or Friday (56).

This day marks the approximate midpoint of spring in the Northern Hemisphere and of autumn in the Southern Hemisphere (starting the season at the March equinox).

Events

553 – The Second Council of Constantinople begins.
1215 – Rebel barons renounce their allegiance to King John of England — part of a chain of events leading to the signing of the Magna Carta.
1260 – Kublai Khan becomes ruler of the Mongol Empire.
1494 – Christopher Columbus lands on the island of Jamaica and claims it for Spain.
1640 – King Charles I of England dissolves the Short Parliament.
1762 – Russia and Prussia sign the Treaty of St. Petersburg.
1789 – In France, the Estates-General convenes for the first time since 1614.
1809 – Mary Kies becomes the first woman awarded a U.S. patent, for a technique of weaving straw with silk and thread.
1809 – The Swiss canton of Aargau allowed citizenship to Jews.
1811 – In the second day of fighting at the Peninsular War Battle of Fuentes de Oñoro the French army, under Marshall André Masséna, drive in the Duke of Wellington's overextended right flank, but French frontal assaults fail to take the town of Fuentes de Oñoro and the Anglo-Portuguese army holds the field at the end of the day.
1821 – Emperor Napoleon dies in exile on the island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean.
1835 – The first railway in continental Europe opens between Brussels and Mechelen.
1860 – Giuseppe Garibaldi sets sail from Genoa, leading the expedition of the Thousand to conquer the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and giving birth to the Kingdom of Italy.
1862 – Cinco de Mayo: Troops led by Ignacio Zaragoza halt a French invasion in the Battle of Puebla in Mexico.
1864 – American Civil War: The Battle of the Wilderness begins in Spotsylvania County.
1865 – American Civil War: The Confederate District of the Gulf surrenders about 4,000 men at Citronelle, Alabama.
1865 – American Civil War: The Confederate government was declared dissolved at Washington, Georgia.
1866 – Memorial Day first celebrated in United States at Waterloo, New York.
1877 – American Indian Wars: Sitting Bull leads his band of Lakota into Canada to avoid harassment by the United States Army under Colonel Nelson Miles.
1886 – The Bay View massacre: A militia fires into a crowd of protesters in Milwaukee, killing seven.
1891 – The Music Hall in New York City (later known as Carnegie Hall) has its grand opening and first public performance, with Tchaikovsky as the guest conductor.
1904 – Pitching against the Philadelphia Athletics at the Huntington Avenue Grounds, Cy Young of the Boston Americans throws the first perfect game in the modern era of baseball.
1905 – The trial in the Stratton Brothers case begins in London, England; it marks the first time that fingerprint evidence is used to gain a conviction for murder.
1912 – Pravda, the "voice" of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, begins publication in Saint Petersburg.
1920 – Authorities arrest Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti for alleged robbery and murder.
1925 – Scopes Trial: Serving of an arrest warrant on John T. Scopes for teaching evolution in violation of the Butler Act.
1925 – The government of South Africa declares Afrikaans an official language.
1936 – Italian troops occupy Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
1940 – World War II: Norwegian refugees form a government-in-exile in London.
1940 – World War II: Norwegian Campaign: Norwegian squads in Hegra Fortress and Vinjesvingen capitulate to German forces after all other Norwegian forces in southern Norway had laid down their arms.
1941 – Emperor Haile Selassie returns to Addis Ababa; the country commemorates the date as Liberation Day or Patriots' Victory Day.
1944 – German troops execute 216 civilians in the village of Kleisoura, Greece.
1945 – World War II: The Prague uprising begins as an attempt by the Czech resistance to free the city from German occupation.
1945 – World War II: Six people are killed when a Japanese fire balloon explodes near Bly, Oregon. They are the only Americans killed in the continental US during the war.
1946 – The International Military Tribunal for the Far East begins in Tokyo with twenty-eight Japanese military and government officials accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
1949 – The Treaty of London establishes the Council of Europe in Strasbourg as the first European institution working for European integration.
1950 – Bhumibol Adulyadej is crowned King Rama IX of Thailand.
1955 – West Germany gains full sovereignty.
1961 – The Mercury program: Mercury-Redstone 3: Alan Shepard becomes the first American to travel into outer space, on a sub-orbital flight.
1964 – The Council of Europe declares May 5 as Europe Day.
1972 – Alitalia Flight 112 crashes into Mount Longa near Palermo, Sicily, killing all 115 aboard, making it the deadliest single-aircraft disaster in Italy.
1973 – Secretariat wins the 1973 Kentucky Derby in 1:59 2/5, an as-yet unbeaten record.
1980 – Operation Nimrod: The British Special Air Service storms the Iranian embassy in London after a six-day siege.
1981 – Bobby Sands dies in the Long Kesh prison hospital after 66 days of hunger-striking, aged 27.
1985 – Bitburg and Bergen-Belsen: Ronald Reagan visits the military cemetery at Bitburg, Germany, and the site of the Nazi concentration camp, Bergen-Belsen, where he makes a speech.
1987 – Iran–Contra affair: Start of Congressional televised hearings in the United States of America
1991 – A riot breaks out in the Mt. Pleasant section of Washington, D.C. after police shoot a Salvadoran man.
1994 – The signing of the Bishkek Protocol between Armenia and Azerbaijan effectively freezes the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
1994 – American teenager Michael P. Fay is caned in Singapore for theft and vandalism.
2006 – The government of Sudan signs an accord with the Sudan Liberation Army.
2010 – Mass protests in Greece erupt in response to austerity measures imposed by the government as a result of the Greek government-debt crisis.
2014 – 11 people are missing after a Chinese cargo ship collides with a Marshall Islands registered container ship off the coast of Hong Kong.
2014 – 22 people die after two boats carrying refugees collide in the Aegean Sea off the coast of Greece.

Holidays and observances

Children's Day (Japan)
Children's Day (South Korea)
Cinco de Mayo (Mexico and the United States)
Christian feast day:
Angelus of Jerusalem
Blessed Edmund Ignatius Rice
Frederick the Wise (Lutheran)
Hilary of Arles
Jutta of Kulmsee
Stanisław Kazimierczyk
May 5 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Constitution Day (Kyrgyzstan)
Coronation Day (Thailand), commemorating the coronation of King Bhumibol Adulyadej in 1950
Europe Day (Council of Europe)
Feast of al-Khadr or Saint George (Palestinian)
Indian Arrival Day (Guyana)
International Midwives' Day (International)
Liberation Day (Denmark)
Liberation Day (Netherlands)
Lusophone Culture Day (Community of Portuguese Language Countries)
Martyrs' Day (Albania)
Patriots' Victory Day (Ethiopia)
Senior Citizens Day (Palau)
Tango no sekku (Japan)

Source: wikipedia