March 5: What Happened on This Day in History (High_school Level)?

(Page last edited 10/12/2017)

1. 1496 - King Henry VII of England issues letters patent to John Cabot and his sons, authorising them to explore unknown lands.
2. 1770 - Boston Massacre: Five Americans, including Crispus Attucks, and a boy, are killed by British troops in an event that would contribute to the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War (also known as the American War of Independence) five years later. At a subsequent trial the soldiers are defended by future U.S. president John Adams.
3. 1931 - The British Viceroy of India, Governor-General Edward Frederick Lindley Wood and Mohandas Gandhi (Mahatma Gandhi) sign an agreement envisaging the release of political prisoners and allowing salt to be freely used by the poorest members of the population.
4. 1933 - Great Depression: President Franklin D. Roosevelt declares a "bank holiday", closing all U.S. banks and freezing all financial transactions.
5. 1933 - Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party receives 43.9% at the Reichstag elections. This later allows the Nazis to pass the Enabling Act and establish a dictatorship.
6. 1946 - Winston Churchill coins the phrase "Iron Curtain" in his speech at Westminster College, Missouri.
7. 1970 - The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty goes into effect after ratification by 43 nations.
8. 1979 - Soviet probes Venera 11, Venera 12 and the American solar satellite Helios II all are hit by "off the scale" gamma rays leading to the discovery of soft gamma repeaters.
9. 1981 - The ZX81, a pioneering British home computer, is launched by Sinclair Research and would go on to sell over 1.5 million units around the world.
10. 1982 - Soviet probe Venera 14 landed on Venus.
11. Famous Birthdays: Gerardus Mercator (Flemish cartographer, philosopher, and mathematician), Jacques Babinet (French physicist), James Tobin (American economist, Nobel Prize laureate), Canaan Banana (Zimbabwean politician, 1st President of Zimbabwe), Lynn Margulis (American biologist)

For famous birthdays and other daily events in history, visit our Daily Dose Activities.

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For more history resources on Internet 4 Classrooms, visit our Social Studies and History index. For Pre K-8th Grade Level History and Social Studies Resources, visit our Grade Level Index.