May 8

October 5

1703 The pastor and theologian Jonathan Edwards was born in East Windsor, Connecticut, the only son of 11 children on October 5, 1703. Edwards was a child prodigy, writing a semi-humorous essay on the nature of the soul at the age of ten. He was interested in natural history, and at the age of twelve young Jonathan wrote a remarkable essay on the habits of the "flying spider."

Jonathan Edwards

1762 Christoph Willibald Glück set out to restore opera to what the original composers intended it to be—an art form marked by high drama, few recitatives and orchestral set-pieces. The German composer increased the importance of the orchestra and permitted the choruses to summarize the events of the story. His first work expressing his new opera ideas was Orfeo ed Euridice, which was debuted at the Burgtheater in Vienna on October 5, 1762.

1789 On October 5, 1789, an agitated assembly of women demanding bread marched to Versailles. The mob wanted the royal family to come with them to Paris, and Louis XVI acquiesced to the people's demands. The royal family were forced to move to the Tuileries Palace in Paris, where they lived under a form of house arrest under the watch of La Fayette's Garde nationale effectively terminating royal authority.

A contemporary illustration of the Oct 5, 1789 Women's March 

1795 General Napoleon Bonaparte was appointed by the republic to repel the royalists on October 5, 1795. He used cannons with grapeshot to destroy a rebel gathering in front of the church of Saint-Roch. More than a 1,400 royalists died and the rest fled. The defeat of the Royalist rebellions ended the threat to the Convention and earned Bonaparte sudden fame and wealth.

1818 Abraham Lincoln's mother, Nancy Hanks Lincoln, died of milk sickness on October 5, 1818, age 34. after her family dairy cow ate poisonous mushrooms and she drank the milk. The  9-year-old Abraham assisted his father in the making of her coffin by whittling the wooden pegs that held the planks together. His 11-year-old sister Sarah cared for him until their father remarried the next year.

Nancy Hanks Lincoln depiction

1829 Chester Arthur, the 21st president of the United States, was born October 5, 1829. He succeeded to the presidency upon the death of President James A. Garfield in September 1881. Arthur took up the cause of reform, supporting the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act. He presided over the rebirth of the U.S. Navy but was criticized for failing to alleviate a growing federal budget surplus. Suffering from poor health, Arthur retired in 1885 at the close of his term.

1864 According to a United Nations Development Programme report, Kolkata's wind and cyclone zone is "very high damage risk." The city has been hit by several devastating cyclones and was almost destroyed by one on October 5, 1864 when an estimated 60,000 died.

1895 The first individual time trial for racing cyclists on public roads was held on a 50-mile course north of London on October 5, 1895. For many years in the UK, time trials were the main road-based cycling competitions, and remain popular today.


1904 Fyodor Uglov was a notable Russian physician and surgeon known for his remarkable career and longevity in the field of medicine. Born on October 5, 1904, he gained international recognition when he was listed by Guinness World Records in 1994 as the oldest practicing surgeon in the world. Uglov retired from practice at the age of 102. 

1918 French pioneering aviator Roland Garros was the first man during World War I to shoot down an enemy plane by firing through his propeller. Garros was shot down and killed near Vouziers, Ardennes on October 5, 1918. It was a month before the end of the the First World War and one day before his 30th birthday.

1930 When built the British airship, R101 was the world's largest flying craft. It crashed in France on its maiden overseas voyage on October 5, 1930, killing 48 of the 54 passengers on board, a greater toll than the better known Hindenburg tragedy, seven years later.


1944 Nelson Mandela's first marriage was to Evelyn Mase. They tied the knot on October 5, 1944, after initially living with her relatives, they rented House no. 8115 in Orlando from early 1946. Mandela filed for divorce in January 1958; the divorce was finalized two months later with their three children placed in Evelyn's care.

1947 The first televised White House address was given by President Harry S. Truman on October 5, 1947. He spoke about food conservation to aid post-war Europe,  which was still recovering from World War II and suffering from famine. In particular, he recommended that Americans cut back on their use of grain in order to help starving Europeans.


1962 The first James Bond movie was Dr. No, which premiered on October 5, 1962. Based on the 1958 novel of the same name by Ian Fleming, it not only debuted the  successful series of Bond films, but it also launched a successful genre of "secret agent" films that flourished in the 1960s.

1962 The Beatles' first record "Love Me Do", written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney in 1958, was released in the United Kingdom on October 5, 1962. It was one of four songs laid down in their first recording session at Abbey Road studios on June 6, 1962. The four musicians received payments for the session of £7.10 ($12.07) each.

1967 Unanimous verdicts were required in Great Britain until the Criminal Justice Act 1967. The first majority verdict was reached by a British jury on October 5, 1967. They found a wrestler who occasionally went by the name ‘the Terrible Turk’ guilty of stealing a handbag.

1969 The first episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus aired on BBC One on October 5, 1969.
The show's title was chosen mainly because it sounded funny. Eric Idle proposed the name Monty, a stereo-typically drunk Brit, while Python was chosen simply because it sounded slippery. Others considered including Arthur Megapode's Cheap Show, Gwen Dibley's Flying Circus and Vaseline Review.


1982 Johnson & Johnson initiated a nationwide product recall in the United States on October 5, 1982 for all products in its Tylenol brand after several bottles in Chicago were found to have been laced with cyanide, resulting in seven deaths. Within a week, the company pulled 31 million bottles of tablets back from retailers, making it one of the first major product recalls in American history.

1989 The Dalai Lama was awarded the Noble Peace Prize on October 5, 1989, for his nonviolent campaign to end Chinese domination of Tibet. He accepted it "on behalf of the oppressed everywhere and all those who struggle for freedom and work for world peace and the people of Tibet."

2001 Baseball player Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants surpassed Mark McGwire's single-season home run total with his milestone 71st and 72nd home runs on October 5, 2001. He ended the season with 73, which is still the MLB record for most home runs in a single season.


2011 Steve Jobs died at his Palo Alto, California, home around 3 p.m. on October 5, 2011, due to complications from a relapse of pancreatic cancer, resulting in respiratory arrest. His last words were "Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow."

2020 Seminal experiments by Harvey Alter, Michael Houghton and Charles Rice led to the discovery of HCV as the causative agent of hepatitis C.  Houghton, Alter, and Rice, were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine on October 5, 2020 for their work.

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