May 8

July 5

1294 Pietro Angelerio was elected pope on July 5, 1294, in the last non-conclave papal election, ending a two-year impasse. A monk and hermit who founded the order of the Celestines as a branch of the Benedictine order, he wrote an angry letter threatening divine punishment if one was not elected soon. The cardinals chose to elect him as Pope Celestine V.  Angelerio initially refused, but after serving for 5 months, he implemented a law that allowed Popes to abdicate. Celestine V abdicated a week later, stating his desire to return to his humble, pre-papal life.

1687 Isaac Newton, already recognized as a leading scientist for his discoveries of the laws of gravity published Principia Mathmaticia on July 5, 1687. A notoriously difficult book to understand, but one of the most important books on science ever written, it set out laws which showed the Universe to be divinely ordained and set the foundation of the science of mechanics. Newton explained that gravitational force was responsible for controlling the motions of the celestial bodies.

Title page of Principia, first edition (1687)

1784 Thomas Jefferson was sent by the Confederation Congress to Europe in 1784 to join Benjamin Franklin and John Adams as ministers for purposes of negotiating commercial trade agreements with England, Spain, and France. Taking his young daughter Patsy and two servants, they departed from Boston on July 5, 1784. Jefferson returned to the US from France in September 1789.

1794 Sylvester Graham was born on July 5, 1794. An American Presbyterian minister, Graham preached nutrition and wanted to reform the eating habits of America and the world. He advocated vegetarianism and the use of only coarse, whole grain flour. He also strongly recommended the reduction, if not total exclusion, of fats from one's daily diet. By 1838 Sylvester Graham was America's premier health-food promoter.

1805 Vice-Admiral Robert FitzRoy, the captain of HMS Beagle during Charles Darwin's famous 1831-36 voyage to the Pacific was born on July 5, 1805. He is also known as the man who invented the weather forecast. When The Royal Charter sank in an 1859 storm, Fitzroy established fifteen land stations to use the telegraph to transmit to him daily reports of weather at set times leading to the first gale warning service. His warning service for shipping was initiated in February 1861.


1810 American showman Phineas Taylor ("P.T.") Barnum was born in Bethel, Connecticut on July 5, 1810, to innkeeper, tailor, and store-keeper Philo Barnum and his second wife Irene Taylor. In 1871 he founded his famous circus - "the Greatest Show on Earth," which included the dwarf ‘General Tom Thumb’, a circus, a menagerie, and an exhibition of ‘freaks’, conveyed in 100 railway carriages.

1841 The very first package tour was organized by English Baptist minister Thomas Cook. He was walking from his home to a Temperance meeting when, "The thought suddenly flashed across my mind as to the practicability of employing the great powers of railways and locomotion for the furtherance of this social reform." On July 5, 1841, for a return fare of 1 shilling, Cook took a party of 570 people from Leicester to a temperance rally 11 miles away at Loughborough starting the tourist industry.

1853 British businessman, mining magnate and politician Cecil Rhodes was born on July 5, 1853 in Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, England. At the age of 17 tuberculous prevented Rhodes from entering Oxford University so he went to South Africa where the active lifestyle restored his health. Rhodes joined the gold rush at Kimberley. Over the next two decades Rhodes gained near-complete domination of the world diamond market.


1865 By the end of the U.S. Civil War, 33 percent of all U.S. paper currency in circulation was counterfeit. This was a devastating situation for a nation struggling to recover economically from such a destructive war. On July 5, 1865, the Secret Service was created as a part of the Department of the Treasury to help suppress counterfeit currency.

1898 English barrister Richard Pankhurst married Emmeline Goulden, better known as Suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst in 1878. They had five children over the next ten years, but lost two sons.
Known as the "Red Doctor," Richard Pankhurst stood for Parliament in the mid 1880s twice, both times unsuccessfully. Richard died suddenly from stomach ulcers on July 5, 1898, and Emmeline was left to bring up her children alone, with no private means.

1900 Harvard student and keen tennis player, Dwight Filley Davis, was born on July 5, 1879. The Davis Cup was named after him after in 1900 he bought a trophy made of 217oz of sterling silver and invited male tennis players from Britain to play against the U.S. America won the first tournament.

Dwight F. Davis

1909 The first hunger strike by a British prisoner was begun by Inverness-born suffragette Miss Marion Wallace Dunlop on July 5, 1909. Dunlop kept it up for 91 hours, until she was released from Holloway Prison on grounds of ill-health.

1915 Alfred Lyttelton was the first man to represent England at both cricket and football. He was also a successful politician and served as Secretary of State for the Colonies between 1903 and 1905. Lyttelton died on July 5, 1915 aged 56 after being struck in the belly during a cricket match in South Africa.

Caricature of Lyttelton keeping wicket

1937 The American Hormel Foods Corporation started marketing their most famous product Hormel Spiced Ham, made from pork shoulder meat and ham, on July 5, 1937. At first it didn't stand out from other brands, so Jay C Hormel asked his New Year's Eve party guests to help and a Kenneth Daigneau came up with the succinct "spam." Spam was used a lot in World War II, as meat was scare and it became a ubiquitous part of the U.S. soldier's diet.

1945 The Labour Party won the United Kingdom general election of July 5, 1945 by a landslide, removing Winston Churchill from power. The results were counted and declared three weeks later owing in part to the time it took to transport the votes of those serving overseas.


1946 Fashion designer Sir Paul Smith was born on July 5, 1946. Smith wanted to be a professional racing cyclist but was forced to change tack when aged 17 he had a serious accident on his bike, while on his way to work at a clothing warehouse. Six months of recovery in hospital followed, during which Smith made friends with people from the local art college who would introduce him to the world of art and fashion.

1946 Four days after the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on deserted Bikini Atoll in 1946, Motor Engineer-turned -designer Louis Reard introduced a new 2-piece woman’s swimsuit at a outdoor fashion show at the Molitor Pool in Paris on July 5, 1946. He proclaimed the suit the "ultimate" concept and called it the bikini, naming it after the atomic bomb test site, as he meant it to be “highly explosive”.

Selection of bikinis in shop windowin in the US in 2005 

1948 In 1938 the New Zealand Social Security Act provided a pioneering state medical service. Stimulated by its success the British economist and civil servant William Beveridge published his report proposing a full welfare state for Britain. The post war UK Labour government took heed of Beveridge's report and on July 5, 1948 they created a public funded healthcare system, the National Health Service as part of their new welfare state.

1954 The BBC's first daily TV news broadcast took place on July 5, 1954. The 20-minute program was introduced by Richard Baker, although John Snagge read the actual bulletin. Baker later recalled: "All I did in that first program, at 7.30pm on 5 July 1954, was to announce, behind a filmed view of Nelson's Column: Here is an illustrated summary of the news. It will be followed by the latest film of happenings at home and abroad."

1975 Arthur Ashe was the first black tennis player to win the US national singles and open championships in 1968.  Five years later, on July 5, 1975, Ashe became the first black man to win Wimbledon, beating defending champion Jimmy Connors three sets to one. While actively protesting apartheid in South Africa, Ashe was granted a visa in 1973 to become the first black professional to play in that country.


1996 Dolly the Sheep, the first mammal to be cloned from an adult cell, was born on July 5, 1996. The cell was taken from a mammary gland. She was named ‘Dolly’ as, in the words of the project leader, Ian Wilmut: “We couldn't think of a more impressive pair of glands than Dolly Parton's.”
Dolly the cloned sheep was put to death after premature aging and disease marred her short life and raised questions about the practicality of copying life.

2003 Johnny Cash made his last ever live performance on July 5, 2003, when he appeared at the Carter Family Fold in Hiltons, Virginia. He performed a 30-minute set that included some of his most iconic songs, such as "Folsom Prison Blues," "I Walk the Line," and "Ring of Fire." Cash passed away two months later, at the age of 71. 


2012 The Shard in Southwark, London was inaugurated as the tallest building in the European Union on July 5, 2012, with a height of 1,016 feet (309.6 metres). A 95-storey skyscraper with 72 habitable floors, The Shard has a viewing gallery and open-air observation deck on the 72nd floor, at a height of 802 ft (244.3 metres). It is also the second-tallest free-standing structure in the United Kingdom, after the concrete tower at the Emley Moor transmitting station.

2013 In September 2000, Pope John XXIII was declared "Blessed" alongside Pope Pius IX by Pope John Paul II, the penultimate step on the road to sainthood after a miracle of curing an ill woman was discovered. He was the first pope since Pope Pius X to receive this honor. On July 5, 2013, Pope Francis approved Pope John XXIII for canonization without the traditional second miracle required. Instead, Francis based this decision on John XXIII's merits for the Second Vatican Council.

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