The Boston Massacre

1770

The Boston Massacre

Born on This Day

Actor Rex Harrison

Rex Harrison

1908 - 1990

Oscar-winning British actor best known for 1960s films like "My Fair Lady" and "Doctor Dolittle."

Andy Gibb Portrait Session

Andy Gibb

1958 - 1988

1970s pop idol and youngest of the Gibb brothers. Scored hits with "I Just Want to Be Your Everything" and "Shadow Dancing."

"The Women" Press Conference

Eva Mendes

1974 -

Cuban-American actress in "Training Day" and "The Place Beyond the Pines" (where she met husband Ryan Gosling).

Rex Harrison

Corbis via Getty Images

Andy Gibb

Getty Images

Eva Mendes

WireImage

1989

MAR

5

Michael Anderson Godwin, sentenced to death by electric chair for a 1980 murder, accidentally electrocutes himself on his jail cell’s steel toilet. The 28-year-old died biting into a wire while trying to fix some earphones.

Timeline

Also on This Day in History

Discover more of the major events, famous births, notable deaths and everything else history-making that happened on March 5th

1839

Charlotte Brontë declines marriage

Charlotte Brontë writes to the Reverend Henry Nussey, declining marriage. The 23-year-old Brontë told him that he would find her “romantic and eccentric” and not practical enough to be a clergyman’s wife. Rather than marry, Brontë struggled as a teacher and governess to help support her brother Branwell’s literary aspirations. In the end, Branwell’s excesses destroyed him; his sisters, […]

1:54m read read

1868

Impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson begins

For the first time in U.S. history, the impeachment trial of an American president gets underway in the U.S. Senate. President Andrew Johnson, reviled by the Republican-dominated Congress for his views on Reconstruction, stood accused of having violated the controversial Tenure of Office Act, passed by Congress over his veto in 1867. At the outbreak […]

3:46m read read

1917

Swedish prime minister resigns over WWI policy

Prime Minister Hjalmar Hammarskjöld of Sweden, father of the famous future United Nations Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld, resigns on this day in 1917 after his policy of strict neutrality in World War I—including continued trading with Germany, in violation of the Allied blockade—leads to widespread hunger and political instability in Sweden. The elder Hammarskjöld, a professor of […]

2:02m read read

1929

David Buick dies

On March 5, 1929, David Dunbar Buick, the founder of the Buick Motor Company, dies in relative obscurity and meager circumstances at the age of 74. In 1908, Buick’s company became the foundation for the General Motors Corporation; however, by that time David Buick had sold his interest in the company. Buick was born in […]

1:30m read read

1946

Churchill delivers Iron Curtain speech

In one of the most famous orations of the Cold War period, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill condemns the Soviet Union’s policies in Europe and declares, “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent.” Churchill’s speech is considered one of the opening volleys announcing […]

1953

Joseph Stalin dies

Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union since 1924, dies in Moscow. Ioseb Dzhugashvili was born in 1878 in Georgia, then part of the old Russian empire. The son of a drunk who beat him mercilessly and a pious washerwoman mother, Stalin learned Russian, which he spoke with a heavy accent all his life, in an […]

2:28m read read

1960

Iconic photo of Che Guevara taken

Moments before he was shot to death by a soldier of the Bolivian government, the revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara told his executioner, “Shoot, coward! You are only going to kill a man!” Guevara died a short time later, on October 9, 1967 at the age of 39, but he was correct in his assertion that […]

Guerrillero Heroico by Alberto Korda

1963

Hula Hoop patented

March 5, 1963: the Hula Hoop, a hip-swiveling toy that became a huge fad across America when it was first marketed by Wham-O in 1958, is patented by the company’s co-founder, Arthur “Spud” Melin. An estimated 25 million Hula Hoops were sold in its first four months of production alone. In 1948, friends Arthur Melin […]

1:36m read read

1966

Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler hits #1 with “Ballad of the Green Berets”

Thanks to Hollywood, America’s collective memory of the Vietnam War is now inextricably linked with the popular music of that era. More specifically, it is linked with the music of the late-’60s counterculture and antiwar movement. But opposition to the war was far from widespread back in 1966—a fact that was reflected not just in […]

2:14m read read

1966

Marvin Miller elected first full-time MLB Players Association executive director

On March 5, 1966, Marvin Miller, the 48-year-old assistant to the president of the United Steelworkers of America, is elected the first full-time executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association. Miller, whose role with the United Steelworkers of America included serving as lead negotiator, takes over at a time when the average yearly […]

1:46m read read

1969

Jim Morrison is charged with lewd behavior at a Miami concert

The Dade County Sheriff’s Office issues an arrest warrant for Doors’ lead singer Jim Morrison. He is charged with a single felony count and three misdemeanors for his stage antics at a Miami concert a few days earlier. When Morrison first got word of the charges for lewd and lascivious behavior, indecent exposure, profanity, and […]

1:24m read read

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