November 5 - Definition and Overview

November 5 is the 309th day of the year (310th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 56 days remaining.

Events

• 1556 - Fifty miles north of Delhi, a Mogul Army defeats Hindu forces of General Hemu to ensure Akbar the throne of India.
• 1605 - Gunpowder Plot: A plot by Guy Fawkes to blow up the English Houses of Parliament is foiled when Sir Thomas Knyvet, a justice of the peace, finds Fawkes in a cellar below the Parliament building
• 1688 - Glorious Revolution begins: William of Orange lands at Brixham.
• 1838 - The United States of Central America began to disintegrate when Honduras separated from the federation.
• 1862 - American Civil War: Abraham Lincoln removes George McClellan as commander of the Union Army.
• 1862 - Indian Wars: In Minnesota, more than 300 Santee Sioux are found guilty of rape and murder of white settlers and are sentenced to hang.
• 1872 - Women's suffrage: In defiance of the law, suffragist Susan B. Anthony votes for the first time (she was later fined $100).
• 1895 - George B. Selden is granted the first U.S. patent for an automobile.
• 1911 - After declaring war on the Ottoman Empire on September 29, 1911, Italy annexes Tripoli and Cyrenaica.
• 1912 - U.S. presidential election, 1912: Democratic challenger Woodrow Wilson wins a landslide victory over Republican incumbent William Howard Taft.
• 1913 - The insane king Otto of Bavaria is deposed by his cousin, Prince Regent Ludwig, who assumed the title Ludwig III.
• 1914 - United Kingdom annexes Cyprus, and together with France declares war on the Ottoman Empire.
• 1916 - Kingdom of Poland proclaimed by the so-called November 5th Act of emperors of Germany and Austria-Hungary.
• 1917 - St. Tikhon of Moscow was elected the Patriarch of Moscow and of the Russian Orthodox Church.
• 1930 - Sinclair Lewis is awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
• 1935 - Parker Brothers releases the board game Monopoly.
• 1937 - World War II: Adolf Hitler holds a secret meeting and states his plans for acquiring "living space" for the German people.
• 1940 - U.S. presidential election, 1940: Democrat incumbent Franklin D. Roosevelt defeats Republican challenger Wendell Willkie and becomes the United States' first third-term president.
• 1962 - The Kings Bay accident on Svalbard that forces the Norweigian government to retreat.
• 1968 - U.S. presidential election, 1968: Republican challenger Richard M. Nixon defeats Vice President Hubert Humphrey and American Independent Party candidate George C. Wallace.
• 1970 - Vietnam War: United States Military Assistance Command in Vietnam reports the lowest weekly American soldier death toll in five years (24).
• 1979 - The radio news program Morning Edition premieres on National Public Radio.
• 1979 - Ayatollah Khomeini declares the USA to be "the great Satan".
• 1987 - Apartheid: In South Africa, Govan Mbeki is released from custody after serving 24 years in the Robben Island prison. He had been sentenced to life for treason against the white minority South Africa government.
• 1990 - Rabbi Meir Kahane, founder of the far-right Kach movement, is shot dead after a speech at a New York City hotel.
• 1992 - In Detroit, Michigan, black motorist Malice Green is beaten to death by policemen Larry Nevers and Walter Budzyn during a struggle.
• 1994 - A letter by former US President Ronald Reagan is released that announces he has Alzheimer's disease.
• 1994 - Forty-five year old George Foreman becomes boxing's oldest heavyweight champion when he knocked out Michael Moorer.
• 1996 - U.S. presidential election, 1996: Democrat incumbent Bill Clinton defeats Republican challenger Bob Dole to win his second term.
• 1998 - Lewinsky scandal: As part of the impeachment inquiry, House Judiciary Committee chairman Henry Hyde sends a list of 81 questions to US President Bill Clinton.
• 1998 - The journal Nature publishes a genetic study showing compelling evidence that Thomas Jefferson fathered his slave Sally Hemings' son Eston Hemings Jefferson.
• 1999 - Microsoft antitrust case: US District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson issues a preliminary ruling that softwaremaker Microsoft had "monopoly power".

Births

• 1742 - Richard Cosway, English artist (d. 1821)
• 1855 - Eugene V. Debs, American socialist leader
• 1855 - Léon Teisserenc de Bort, meteorologist (d. 1913)
• 1857 - Ida Tarbell, journalist
• 1863 - James Packard, automobile pioneer (d. 1928)
• 1885 - Will Durant, writer (d. 1981)
• 1892 - J. B. S. Haldane, geneticist
• 1895 - Walter Gieseking, French conductor (d. 1956)
• 1895 - Charles MacArthur, author (d. 1956)
• 1900 - Martin Dies, Jr., American politician (d. 1972)
• 1905 - Joel McCrea, actor
• 1912 - Roy Rogers, actor (d. 1998)
• 1913 - Vivien Leigh, actress (d. 1967)
• 1921 - Fawzia of Egypt, empress of Iran
• 1931 - Ike Turner, musician
• 1941 - Art Garfunkel, musician
• 1941 - Elke Sommer, actress
• 1943 - Sam Shepard, playwright, actor
• 1946 - Herman Brood, musician, artist
• 1946 - Gram Parsons, musician (d. 1973)
• 1947 - Peter Noone, musician, actor
• 1949 - Armin Shimerman, actor (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)
• 1952 - Bill Walton, basketball star, commentator
• 1955 - Bernard Chazelle, computational geometry researcher
• 1959 - Bryan Adams, musician
• 1963 - Tatum O'Neal, actress
• 1965 - Famke Janssen, Dutch model and actress
• 1973 - Johnny Damon, baseball player
• 1974 - Jerry Stackhouse, basketball player
• 1974 - Ryan Adams, rock and roll performer
• 1986 - BoA, Korean singer

Deaths

• 1803 - Choderlos de Laclos, writer
• 1836 - Karel Hynek Mácha, poet
• 1933 - Texas Guinan, actress, musician
• 1937 - Ramsay MacDonald, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
• 1942 - George M. Cohan, musician, actor, writer, composer
• 1951 - Reggie Walker, South African athlete
• 1955 - Maurice Utrillo, French artist
• 1956 - Art Tatum, musician
• 1960 - Mack Sennett, pioneer producer/director
• 1960 - Ward Bond, actor
• 1974 - Stafford Repp, actor (b. 1918)
• 1975 - Lionel Trilling, American critic and writer
• 1977 - Guy Lombardo, conductor
• 1979 - Al Capp, cartoonist
• 1982 - Jacques Tati, actor, director
• 1985 - Spencer W. Kimball, president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (b. 1895)
• 1989 - Vladimir Horowitz, pianist
• 1990 - Meir Kahane, Jewish activist
• 1991 - Fred MacMurray, actor
• 1997 - Isaiah Berlin, historian of ideas
• 1997 - Georg Solti, Hungarian Solti (b. 1912)
• 2000 - Victor Grinich US-Croat businessman (b. 1924)
• 2003 - Bobby Hatfield, American musician, one-half of the Righteous Brothers

Holidays

• Ancient Latvia - the festival Katrina

Annual festivals

• United Kingdom and New Zealand - Guy Fawkes night (also called Bonfire night; or Fireworks night): Failure of the Gunpowder Plot to blow up Parliament in 1605 is celebrated with bonfires and fireworks.

November 4 - November 6 - October 5 - December 5 - more historical anniversaries