June 5 is the 156th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (157th in leap years), with 209 days remaining.
- 1741 - Vitus Bering departs Kamchatka to explore Alaska.
- 1752 - Benjamin Franklin proves that lightning is electricity (kite + key + lightning)
- 1783 - The Montgolfier brothers demonstrate publicly their montgolfière (hot air balloon)
- 1817 - First Great Lakes steamer launched.
- 1829 - HMS Pickle captures the armed slave ship Voladora off the coast of Cuba
- 1833 - Ada Lovelace meets Charles Babbage
- 1849 - Signing of the Danish constitution
- 1864 - American Civil War: Battle of Piedmont
- 1895 - Nicholas Flood Davin's[?] motion to enfranchise women defeated in Canadian House of Commons.
- 1900 - Boer War: British soldiers take Pretoria, South Africa
- 1916 - Stein's Dixie Jass Band plays its first gig under its new name, the Original Dixieland Jass Band
- 1916 - Louis Brandeis becomes Justice of the United States Supreme Court
- 1917 - World War I: Conscription begins in the United States
- 1940 - Canadian Cabinet declares Nazi, Fascist and Communist organizations illegal and jails leaders.
- 1944 - World War II: Rome falls to the Allies. It is the first capital of an Axis nation to fall
- 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
- 1947 - Marshall Plan: United States Secretary of State George Marshall calls for economic aid to war-torn Europe
- 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: The Israeli air force launches simultaneous attacks on the air forces of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria
- 1968 - Robert F. Kennedy is shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California by Sirhan Sirhan. He dies the next day
- 1975 - The Suez Canal opens for the first time since the Six-Day War
- 1977 - A coup takes place in Seychelles
- 1977 - The Apple II personal computer goes on sale
- 1984 - President of India Indira Gandhi orders an attack on the Golden Temple[?], the Sikh holy spot
- 1995 - Bose-Einstein condensate is first created
- 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.
- 1341 - Edmund of Langley, a younger son of King Edward III of England (+ 1402)
- 1718 - Thomas Chippendale, furniture maker (+ 1779)
- 1723 - Adam Smith, economist (+ 1790)
- 1757 - Pierre Jean George Cabanis, physiologist (+ 1808)
- 1771 - King Ernest Augustus I of Hanover[?] (+ 1851)
- 1781 - Christian August Lobeck, classical scholar (+ 1860)
- 1819 - John Couch Adams, co-discoverer of Neptune
- 1850 - Pat Garrett[?], Western lawman (+ 1908)
- 1876 - Tony Jackson, musician (+ 1921)
- 1879 - Robert Mayer, philanthropist (+ 1985)
- 1883 - John Maynard Keynes, economist (+ 1946)
- 1884 - Ralph Benatzky[?], composer (+ 1957)
- 1887 - Pancho Villa, revolutionary (+ 1923)
- 1894 - Roy Thomson, Lord Thomson of Fleet, publisher(+ 1976)
- 1895 - William Boyd[?] ("Hopalong Cassidy"), actor (+ 1972)
- 1898 - Federico García Lorca, lyricist and dramatist (+ 1936)
- 1912 - Josef Neckermann[?], entrepreneur and dressage equestrian (+ 1992)
- 1919 - Richard Scarry, children's author (+ 1994)
- 1925 - Boy Gobert[?], actor (+ 1986)
- 1925 - Art Donovan[?], American football star
- 1928 - Robert Lansing, actor (+ 1994)
- 1928 - Tony Richardson, actor (+ 1991)
- 1931 - Jacques Demy[?], playwright
- 1932 - Christy Brown[?], author (+ 1981)
- 1934 - Bill Moyers, journalist and muckraker
- 1939 - Joe Clark, sixteenth Prime Minister of Canada
- 1939 - Margaret Drabble, English novelist
- 1941 - Martha Argerich, Argentinian pianist
- 1941 - Spalding Gray, actor, screenwriter, and monologue artist
- 1944 - Tommie Smith[?], athlete
- 1947 - Laurie Anderson, performance artist, actress, composer
- 1949 - Ken Follett, author
- 1962 - Princess Astrid of Belgium
- 1971 - Mark Wahlberg ("Marky Mark"), singer, actor
- 1979 - David Bisbal, singer
- 535 - Epiphanius of Constantinople, patriarch of Constantinople
- 1316 - King Louis X of France
- 1900 - Stephen Crane, author
- 1910 - O. Henry, author
- 1916 - Horatio Kitchener, Lord Kitchener, Field Marshal
- 1920 - Rhoda Broughton, author
- 1921 - Georges Feydeau, French playwright
- 1930 - Pascin, the "Prince of Montparnasse"
- 1942 - Samuel Adams, naval officer
- 1993 - Conway Twitty[?], country musician
- 1998 - Jeanette Nolan[?], actress
- 1998 - Sam Yorty[?], former mayor of Los Angeles, California
- 1999 - Mel Tormé[?], singer, composer, actor
- 2002 - Dee Dee Ramone, musician ("The Ramones")
- 2003 - Jürgen Möllemann, German politician
See Also:
June 4 - June 6 - May 5 - July 5 -- listing of all days
January, February, March, April, May, June, July,
August, September, October, November, December