September 5

1548 King Henry VIII's sixth and last wife was Catherine Parr. Well-educated, sensitive, sympathetic, she was a twice widowed woman in her thirties when they married in 1543. Six months after Henry's death in 1547, Catherine married her fourth and final husband, Thomas Seymour, 1st Baron Seymour of Sudeley. The marriage was short-lived, as she died on September 5, 1548. probably of complications of childbirth. Catherine was the most-married-ever English queen, with four husbands.

1638 Louis XIV of France was born on September 5, 1638 in the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye to Louis XIII of France and Anne of Austria. He was born after 23 years of childless marriage and four stillbirths and his parents regarded him as a divine gift. He was christened "Louis-Dieudonné" (the latter word meaning "God-given"), Anne of Austria compared herself with mothers in the Bible who had born a child in their later years, so from an early age a Christ like mythology was attached to Louis. 

Louis-Dieudonné, Dauphin of France, in 1643 by Claude Deruet

1698 Tsar Peter I of Russia’s visits to the West impressed upon him the notion that European customs were in several respects superior to Russian traditions. As a result, the Tsar imposed a tax on beards on September 5, 1698. All men except priests and peasants had to pay up to 100 roubles (a small fortune in those years) annually and carry around a copper or bronze token to show they had paid the tax. Peasants were allowed to wear beards in their villages, but were required to shave it off when entering the city.

1793 The National Convention began the Reign of Terror, a ten-month period of systematic repression and mass executions by guillotine of perceived enemies within France on September 5, 1793. The death toll ranged in the tens of thousands, with 16,594 executed by guillotine (2,639 in Paris), and another 25,000 in summary executions across France. It ended with the fall of French Revolution leader Maximilien Robespierre in July 1794. 

Nine émigrés are executed by guillotine, 1793

1800 In 1530 Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, gave the island of Malta to the Knights of St. John. They maintained control until Napoleon and the French arrived in 1798. The French rule was not popular and Maltese rebels invited the English Royal Navy to send her navy, which blockaded the island. General Claude-Henri Belgrand de Vaubois was forced to surrender his French forces on September 5, 1800 and it became the Malta Protectorate. 

1836 General Sam Houston was elected as the first president of the Republic of Texas on September 5, 1836. The city of Houston was named after General Sam Houston, who fought for Texas freedom. His victory at the Battle of San Jacinto in 1836 secured the independence of Texas from Mexico. 

1847 The outlaw Jesse James was born in Clay County, Missouri, near the site of present-day Kearney, on September 5, 1847. His father, Robert S. James, was a commercial hemp farmer and Baptist minister in Kentucky, who migrated to Bradford, Missouri, after marriage Jesse and and his brother Frank formed a gang robbing banks, stagecoaches, and trains across the Midwest. With Jesse James as the public face of the gang, they were revered as outlaws despite the brutality of their crimes. 

1852 The first public library in the UK to be supported by public rates was founded in Campfield, in the center of Manchester on September 5, 1852. Its first chief librarian Edward Edwards - the "father" of the public library movement - was joined by Charles Dickens and fellow author William Thackeray for the opening.

1879 French artist Claude Monet's 1866 painting The Woman in the Green Dress (La femme à la robe verte) depicted his mistress Camille Doncieux. Shortly thereafter Doncieux became pregnant and she gave birth to their first child, Jean.  They married in June 1870 and had another son, Michel, in 1878, but Camille’s health declined following the birth of their second child and she died of uterine cancer on September 5, 1879 at the age of 32.

The Woman in the Green Dress,1866

1882 The first Labor Day happened way back on Tuesday, September 5, 1882 in New York City in accordance with the plans of the Central Labor Union. 10,000 workers marched through New York City before a picnic, concert, and speeches at a park. Many of them lost a day's pay in order to participate. Labor Day received its first official recognition by local governments. It wasn't until 1894 that Congress passed an act making the first Monday in September of each year a legal holiday.

1882 A group of London school boys led by Bobby Buckle founded Tottenham Hotspur F.C. on September 5, 1882. They were members of the Hotspur Cricket Club, and the football club was formed so they could continue to play sports during the winter months.

1905 The Treaty of Portsmouth formally ended the 1904–05 Russo-Japanese War. The Armistice was signed at The Hotel Wentworth in New Castle, New Hampshire on September 5, 1905. The peace agreement marked the first and only time a foreign war has concluded on U.S. soil.

1906 The first legal forward pass in American football was thrown by Bradbury Robinson of St. Louis University to teammate Jack Schneider during a game against Carroll College (Wisconsin) on September 5, 1906. The play stunned the fans and the Carroll players. St. Louis went on to win, 22–0.

1914 Babe Ruth made his major-league debut in 1914 with the Boston Red Sox at an annual rookie salary of $2,900. Soon after, he was loaned to minor-league Providence Grays, members of the International League. He hit his first professional home run playing for the Providence Grays on September 5, 1914 in a game against the Toronto Maple Leafs baseball club at Hanlan's Point Stadium.

Providence Grays with Babe Ruth (top row, center), 1914

1942 On September 5, 1942, United States Navy Petty Officer First Class Charles Jackson French, of Omaha Nebraska, swam through the night for around seven hours pulling a raft of 15 wounded sailors with a rope around his stomach through shark-infested waters after the USS Gregory was hit. 

1945 In early September 1945 Australian journalist Wilfred Burchett defied US restrictions and snuck into Hiroshima by train. Burchett was the first to tell the world about the effects of radiation on the victims of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima. His Morse code dispatch was printed on the front page of the Daily Express newspaper in London on September 5, 1945. It was entitled "The Atomic Plague", with the subtitle "I Write This as a Warning to the World".

1946 Freddie Mercury was born an Indian Parsi with the birth name Farrokh Bulsara on September 5, 1946 in the Sultanate of Zanzibar. He grew up there and in India until his mid-teens, before moving with his family to Middlesex, England. Bulsura formed Queen in 1970 with guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor and changed his name to Freddie Mercury after the lyrics "Mother Mercury, look what they've done to me" in "My Fairy King".

1955 The first Waffle House opened on September 5, 1955 at 2719 East College Avenue in Avondale Estates, Georgia. Today, Waffle House serves 2% off all the eggs eaten in America. FEMA sometimes measures a storm's impact using a thing called the waffle house index. This is because there are so many of them and they have the unique ability to operate completely off gas for power/heating/cooking. So if the waffle house is closed then its tantamount to complete disaster!

The first Waffle House restaurant (now a museum). By Big Wang

1958 Russian author Boris Pasternak started writing Doctor Zhivago around 1915 but did not finish it until 1956. Due to its independent minded stance on the socialist state, it was refused publication in the Soviet Union because it "rejected socialist realism". The manuscript of Doctor Zhivago was smuggled to Italy and published in November 1957 in Milan by Giangiacomo Feltrinelli. It was published in the US on September 5, 1958.

1958 Martin Luther King, Jr. was convicted in Montgomery, Alabama, of loitering outside the Recorder's Court and disobeying a police order. He was fined $14 on September 5, 1958, but chose to spend 14 days in jail. King was soon released when Police Commissioner Clyde Sellers paid his fine. King was arrested 29 times during his lifetime for his work in the civil rights movement and was also subjected to physical violence and threats of death.

1960 A fear of flying meant Muhammad Ali (then Cassius Clay) tried to withdraw from the 1960 Olympic Games just weeks before the US team traveled to Rome. He was eventually persuaded to go but spent the entire flight with a parachute strapped to his back. It was worth it as Clay won the gold medal in the light heavyweight boxing competition on September 5, 1960.  Clay sent his medal to his high school teacher who once taunted him, "you ain't never gonna be nuthin."

1982 Despite the loss of both his legs, English World War II fighter pilot Douglas Bader was credited with 20 aerial victories, four shared victories, six probables, one shared probable and 11 enemy aircraft damaged during the conflict. Following the war, Bader campaigned for the disabled and continued to fly until 1979.  On September 5, 1982, after a dinner honoring Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Arthur "Bomber" Harris at the Guildhall, Bader died of a heart attack aged 72 while travelling home.

1985 The giant panda bear Ling Ling was born on September 5, 1985. He was given to Japan by the Chinese in 1992.  He served as an important symbol of friendship between the two countries. Despite being a male panda, Ling Ling's name meant "darling little girl" in Chinese.

1997 Catholic nun and missionary Mother Teresa died of a heart attack in Calcutta, India, on September 5, 1997. Mother Teresa was granted a full state funeral by the Indian Government, an honor normally given to presidents and prime ministers, in gratitude for her services to the poor of all religions in India. Her death was widely considered a great tragedy within both secular and religious communities. In 1999 Mother Teresa headed Gallup's List of Most Widely Admired People of the 20th Century.

2019 74-year-old Erramatti Mangayamma became the world's oldest mother when she successfully gave birth to two healthy babies on September 5, 2019  in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. After 57 years in a childless marriage, Erramatti, and her husband, Raka Rao, conceived after successfully undergoing IVF treatment from Ahalya Hospital.