June 5 is the 156th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (157th in leap years), with 209 days remaining.

Events

• 1783 - The Montgolfier brothers publicly demonstrate their montgolfière (hot air balloon).
• 1817 - First Great Lakes steamer, the Frontenac , is launched.
• 1829 - HMS Pickle captures the armed slave ship Voladora off the coast of Cuba.
• 1837 - Houston, Texas is granted a city charter.
• 1849 - Denmark becomes a constitutional monarchy by the signing of a new constitution.
• 1851 - Harriet Beecher Stowe's anti-slavery serial, Uncle Tom's Cabin or, Life Among the Lowly starts a ten-month run in the National Era abolitionist newspaper.
• 1864 - American Civil War: Battle of Piedmont - Union forces under General David Hunter defeat a Confederate army at Piedmont, Virginia , taking nearly 1,000 prisoners.
• 1900 - Boer War: British soldiers take Pretoria, South Africa.
• 1907 - BAPS Swaminarayan religion established.
• 1916 - Stein's Dixie Jass Band plays its first gig under its new name, the Original Dixieland Jass Band.
• 1916 - Louis Brandeis is sworn in as a Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
• 1917 - World War I: Conscription begins in the United States as "Army registration day."
• 1924 - Ernst Alexanderson sends the first facsimile across the Atlantic Ocean (to his father in Sweden).
• 1933 - The U.S. Congress abrogates the United States' use of the gold standard by enacting a joint resolution (48 Stat. 112) nullifying the right of creditors to demand payment in gold.
• 1944 - World War II: More than 1000 British bombers drop 5000 tons of bombs on German gun batteries on the Normandy coast in preparation for D-Day.
• 1945 - Allied Control Council, military occupation governing body of Germany, formally takes power.
• 1946 - A fire in the LaSalle Hotel in Chicago kills 61 people.
• 1947 - Marshall Plan: At a speech at Harvard University, United States Secretary of State George Marshall calls for economic aid to war-torn Europe.
• 1954 - The last new episode of the comic variety program, Your Show of Shows, airs.
• 1956 - Elvis Presley introduces his new single, Hound Dog, on The Milton Berle Show, scandalizing the audience with his suggestive hip movements.
• 1959 - The first government of the State of Singapore is sworn in.
• 1963 - British Secretary of State for War John Profumo resigns in a sex scandal.
• 1967 - Six-Day War begins: The Israeli air force launches simultaneous attacks on the air forces of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria.
• 1968 - U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy is shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California by Sirhan Sirhan. (He died on June 6).
• 1970 - Chile becomes a member of the Berne Convention copyright treaty.
• 1975 - The Suez Canal opens for the first time since the Six-Day War.
• 1976 - Collapse of the Teton Dam in Idaho.
• 1977 - A coup takes place in Seychelles.
• 1977 - The Apple II, the first practical personal computer, goes on sale.
• 1981 - The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that five homosexual men in Los Angeles, California have a rare form of pneumonia seen only in patients with weakened immune systems (these were the first recognized cases of AIDS).
• 1984 - Prime Minister of India Indira Gandhi orders an attack on the Golden Temple, the Sikh holy spot.
• 1986 - A 52-year old man in Auburn, Washington dies after taking an Excedrin capsule laced with cyanide; this is the first of two Excedrin deaths.
• 1987 - Ted Koppel hosts a "National Town Meeting on AIDS" on a special 4-hour long live broadcast of Nightline.
• 1989 - The Unknown Rebel halts the progress of a column of advancing tanks for over half an hour after the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989
• 1992 - Patriot Games opens in theaters, starring Harrison Ford.
• 1995 - Bose-Einstein condensate is first created.
• 1998 - A strike begins at the General Motors parts factory in Flint, Michigan that quickly spreads to five other assembly plants (the strike lasted seven weeks).
• 1998 - Both Reuters and ABC news erroneously report the death of comedian Bob Hope after Arizona congressman Bob Stump announces the demise of Hope on the floor of the US Congress.
• 2001 - Senator Jim Jeffords leaves the Republican party, an act which changes control of the United States Senate from the Republican party to the Democratic party.
• 2002 - Elizabeth Smart is kidnapped from her Salt Lake City, Utah home.
• 2002 - Mozilla 1.0, the first 'official' version, is released.
• 2004 - Smarty Jones loses at the Belmont Stakes to Birdstone and fails to bid the Triple Crown.

Births

• 1341 - Edmund of Langley, a younger son of King Edward III of England (d. 1402)
• 1718 - Thomas Chippendale, English furniture maker (d. 1779)
• 1723 - Adam Smith, Scottish economist (d. 1790)
• 1757 - Pierre Jean George Cabanis, French physiologist (d. 1808)
• 1771 - King Ernest I of Hanover (d. 1851)
• 1781 - Christian August Lobeck, German classical scholar (d. 1860)
• 1819 - John Couch Adams, English mathematician, co-discoverer of Neptune (d. 1892)
• 1850 - Pat Garrett, American Western lawman (d. 1908)
• 1876 - Tony Jackson, American musician (d. 1920)
• 1879 - Robert Mayer, philanthropist (d. 1985)
• 1883 - John Maynard Keynes, English economist (d. 1946)
• 1884 - Ralph Benatzky , composer (d. 1957)
• 1887 - Pancho Villa, Mexican revolutionary (d. 1923)
• 1894 - Roy Thomson, Lord Thomson of Fleet, English publisher(d. 1976)
• 1895 - William Boyd, American actor (d. 1972)
• 1898 - Federico García Lorca, Spanish lyricist and dramatist (d. 1936)
• 1912 - Josef Neckermann , entrepreneur and dressage equestrian (d. 1992)
• 1919 - Richard Scarry, children's author (d. 1994)
• 1925 - Art Donovan, American football star
• 1925 - Boy Gobert , actor (d. 1986)
• 1928 - Robert Lansing, actor (d. 1994)
• 1928 - Tony Richardson, British actor (d. 1991)
• 1931 - Jacques Demy, French playwright
• 1932 - Christy Brown, author (d. 1981)
• 1934 - Bill Moyers, American journalist
• 1938 - Karin Balzer, East German hurdler
• 1939 - Joe Clark, sixteenth Prime Minister of Canada
• 1939 - Margaret Drabble, English novelist
• 1941 - Martha Argerich, Argentine pianist
• 1941 - Spalding Gray, American actor, screenwriter, and monologue artist (d. 2004)
• 1944 - Tommie Smith, American athlete
• 1947 - Laurie Anderson, American performance artist, actress, composer
• 1949 - Ken Follett, Welsh author
• 1954 - Nicko McBrain, English musician (Iron Maiden)
• 1962 - Princess Astrid of Belgium
• 1967 - Joe DeLoach, American athlete
• 1970 - Martin Gelinas, Canadian ice hockey player
• 1971 - Mark Wahlberg ("Marky Mark"), American singer, actor
• 1972 - Mike Bucci (Nova, Simon Dean), American professional wrestler
• 1979 - David Bisbal, Spanish singer

Deaths

• 535 - Epiphanius of Constantinople, patriarch of Constantinople
• 1118 - Robert de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Leicester
• 1296 - Edmund Crouchback, 1st Earl of Lancaster (b. 1245)
• 1316 - King Louis X of France (b. 1289)
• 1900 - Stephen Crane, American author (b. 1871)
• 1910 - O. Henry, American author (b. 1862)
• 1913 - Chris von der Ahe, baseball pioneer (b. 1851)
• 1916 - Horatio Kitchener, Lord Kitchener, British Field Marshal (b. 1850)
• 1920 - Rhoda Broughton, Welsh author (b. 1840)
• 1921 - Georges Feydeau, French playwright (b. 1862)
• 1930 - Pascin, the "Prince of Montparnasse" (b. 1885)
• 1942 - Samuel Adams, American naval officer (b. 1912)
• 1975 - Paul Keres, Estonian chess player (b. 1916)
• 1979 - Heinz Erhardt , German comedian (b. 1909)
• 1993 - Conway Twitty, American country musician (b. 1933)
• 1998 - Jeanette Nolan , actress
• 1998 - Sam Yorty, mayor of Los Angeles, California (b.1909)
• 1999 - Mel Tormé, American singer, composer, actor (b. 1925)
• 2002 - Dee Dee Ramone, musician (The Ramones) (b. 1952)
• 2003 - Jürgen Möllemann, German politician (b. 1945)
• 2004 - Ronald Reagan, President of the United States (b. 1911)

Holidays and observances

• National holiday of Denmark (Constitution Day)
• Seychelles - Liberation Day
• Feast of Saint Boniface
• Bahá'í Faith - Feast of Núr (Light) - First day of the fifth month of the Bahá'í Calendar

External links

• BBC: On This Day

June 4 - June 6 - May 5 - July 5 -- listing of all days