On this day in history

July 5

31 births · 10 deaths · 5 events

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Anniversary highlights

Event anniversary

Battle of Kursk

83 years ago

Born this day

1911

Georges Pompidou

Would be 115

Photo (modified): Farabola · Public domain

Oldest record

309th

Pedro III of Portugal

birth anniversary

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Famous births31

1717 · 309 yrs

Pedro III of Portugal

Dom Peter III (Portuguese: Pedro III, pronounced; 5 July 1717 – 25 May 1786), nicknamed the Builder, was King of Portugal from 24 February 1777 to his death in 1786, by marriage to his niece Queen Dona Maria I.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

RoyaltyDied aged 68

View profile Photo (modified): Attributed to Vieira Lusitano · Public domain

1781 · 245 yrs

Thomas Stamford Raffles

Sir Thomas Stamford Bingley Raffles (5 July 1781 – 5 July 1826) was a British colonial official who served as the governor of the Dutch East Indies between 1811 and 1816 and lieutenant-governor of Bencoolen between 1818 and 1824.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PoliticsDied aged 45

View profile Photo (modified): George Francis Joseph · Public domain

1810 · 216 yrs

P. T. Barnum

Phineas Taylor Barnum (July 5, 1810 – April 7, 1891) was an American showman, businessman, and politician remembered for promoting celebrated hoaxes and founding the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus with James Anthony Bailey.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PoliticsDied aged 80

View profile Photo (modified): Brady-Handy Photograph Collection (Library of Congress) · Public domain

1820 · 206 yrs

William John Macquorn Rankine

William John Macquorn Rankine (5 July 1820 – 24 December 1872) was a Scottish mathematician and physicist. He was a founding contributor, with Rudolf Clausius and William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), to the science of thermodynamics, particularly focusing on its First Law.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

TechnologyDied aged 52

View profile Photo (modified): Thomas Annan (1829-1887) · Public domain

1853 · 173 yrs

Cecil John Rhodes

Cecil John Rhodes ( SES-əl ROHDZ; 5 July 1853 – 26 March 1902) was a British mining magnate and politician in southern Africa who served as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony from 1890 to 1896.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

BusinessDied aged 48

View profile Photo (modified): unattributed · Public domain

1857 · 169 yrs

Clara Zetkin

Clara Zetkin (German:; née Eißner; 5 July 1857 – 20 June 1933) was a German Marxist theorist, communist activist, and advocate for women's rights. Until 1917, she was active in the Social Democratic Party of Germany.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ActivismDied aged 75

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1886 · 140 yrs100 Club

Willem Drees

Willem Drees Sr. (5 July 1886 – 14 May 1988) was a Dutch politician of the Social Democratic Workers' Party (SDAP) and later co-founder of the Labour Party (PvdA) and historian who served as Prime Minister of the Netherlands from 7 August 1948 to 22 December 1958.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PoliticsWould be 140

View profile Photo (modified): Rob Bogaerts for Anefo · CC0

1888 · 138 yrs

Herbert Spencer Gasser

Herbert Spencer Gasser (July 5, 1888 – May 11, 1963) was an American physiologist, and recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1944 for his work with action potentials in nerve fibers while on the faculty of Washington University in St. Louis, awarded jointly with Joseph Erlanger.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceWould be 138

View profile Photo (modified): Esselte · Public domain

1889 · 137 yrs

Jean Cocteau

Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau (UK: KOK-toh, US: kok-TOH; French:; 5 July 1889 – 11 October 1963) was a French poet, playwright, screenwriter, novelist, designer, film director, visual artist and critic.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureWould be 137

View profile Photo (modified): Agence de presse Meurisse · Public domain

1891 · 135 yrs

John Howard Northrop

John Howard Northrop (July 5, 1891 – May 27, 1987) was an American biochemist who, with James Batcheller Sumner and Wendell Meredith Stanley, won the 1946 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The award was given for these scientists' isolation, crystallization, and study of enzymes, proteins, and viruses.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceWould be 135

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown author · Public domain

1904 · 122 yrs100 Club

Ernst Mayr

Ernst Walter Mayr ( MYRE; German:; 5 July 1904 – 3 February 2005) was a German-American evolutionary biologist. He was also a renowned taxonomist, tropical explorer, ornithologist, philosopher of biology, and historian of science.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceWould be 122

View profile Photo (modified): University of Konstanz · CC BY 2.5

1908 · 118 yrs

Andrei Gromyko

Andrei Andreyevich Gromyko (18 July 1909 – 2 July 1989) was a Soviet politician and diplomat during the Cold War. He served as Minister of Foreign Affairs (1957–1985) and as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet (1985–1988).

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PoliticsWould be 118

View profile Photo (modified): Mieremet, Rob / Anefo · CC BY-SA 3.0 nl

Showing 12 of 31

Famous deaths10

1826 · 200 yrs

Thomas Stamford Raffles

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PoliticsDied aged 45

View profile Photo (modified): George Francis Joseph · Public domain

1833 · 193 yrs

Nicéphore Niépce

Joseph Nicéphore Niépce (French:; 7 March 1765 – 5 July 1833) was a French inventor and one of the pioneers of photography. Niépce developed heliography, a technique he used to create the world's oldest surviving products of a photographic process.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

TechnologyDied aged 68

View profile Photo (modified): Léonard François Berger · Public domain

1927 · 99 yrs

Albrecht Kossel

Ludwig Karl Martin Leonhard Albrecht Kossel (German pronunciation:; 16 September 1853 – 5 July 1927) was a German biochemist and pioneer in the study of genetics.

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ScienceDied aged 73

View profile Photo (modified): Kossel,_Albrecht_(1853-1927).jpg : George Grantham Bain Collection (Library of Congress) derivative work: Materialscient · Public domain

1948 · 78 yrs

Georges Bernanos

Louis Émile Clément Georges Bernanos (French:; 20 February 1888 – 5 July 1948) was a French author, and a soldier in World War I. A Catholic with monarchist leanings, he was critical of elitist thought and was opposed to what he identified as defeatism.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureWould be 138

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown author · Public domain

1966 · 60 yrs

George de Hevesy

George Charles de Hevesy (born György Bischitz; Hungarian: Hevesy György Károly; German: Georg Karl von Hevesy; 1 August 1885 – 5 July 1966) was a Hungarian radiochemist and Nobel Prize in Chemistry laureate, recognized in 1943 for his key role in the development of radioactive tracers to study chemical processes such…

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceWould be 141

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown author · Public domain

1969 · 57 yrs

Walter Gropius

Walter Adolph Georg Gropius (German:; 18 May 1883 – 5 July 1969) was a German-American architect and founder of the Bauhaus School, who is widely regarded as one of the pioneering masters of modernist architecture.

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ArtWould be 143

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1975 · 51 yrs

Otto Skorzeny

Otto Johann Anton Skorzeny (12 June 1908 – 5 July 1975) was an Austrian-born German intelligence officer and commando who served as an SS-Obersturmbannführer within the Waffen-SS during the Second World War.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

MilitaryWould be 118

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2003 · 23 yrs

Nǃxau

Nǃxau ǂToma (Juǀʼhoan:, short: Nǃxau, alternative spelling Gcao Tekene Çoma; c. 1944 – 5 July 2003) was a Namibian bush farmer and actor who starred in the 1980 film The Gods Must Be Crazy and its sequels, in which he played the Kalahari Bushman Xixo. The Namibian called him "Namibia's most famous actor".

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

FilmWould be 81

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2015 · 11 yrs

Yoichiro Nambu

Yoichiro Nambu (南部陽一郎, Nanbu Yōichirō; 18 January 1921 – 5 July 2015) was a Japanese-American physicist and professor at the University of Chicago.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceWould be 105

View profile Photo (modified): Betsy Devine · CC BY-SA 3.0

2021 · 5 yrs

Raffaella Carrà

Raffaella Maria Roberta Pelloni (18 June 1943 – 5 July 2021), known professionally as Raffaella Carrà (Italian:) and sometimes mononymously as Raffaella, was an Italian singer, dancer, actress, television presenter and model.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

MusicWould be 83

View profile Photo (modified): Grand Hôtel · Public domain

Events5

1770 · 256 yrs

Battle of Chesma

The Battle of Chesma (also known as the Battle of Chesme, Battle of Cheshme or Battle of Cesme Bay) took place on 5–7 July 1770 in and near Çeşme, in the area between the western tip of Anatolia and the island of Chios, which was the site of a number of past naval battles between the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of…

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

War

1809 · 217 yrs

Battle of Wagram

The Battle of Wagram (5–6 July 1809) was a military engagement of the Napoleonic Wars that ended in a costly but decisive victory for Emperor Napoleon's French and allied army against the Austrian army under the command of Archduke Charles of Austria-Teschen.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

War

1941 · 85 yrs

Ecuadorian–Peruvian War

The Second Ecuadorian–Peruvian War, usually called simply the Ecuadorian–Peruvian War, and known locally as the War of '41 (Spanish: Guerra del 41), was a South American war fought between 5 July to 2 October of 1941. It was the first of three military conflicts between Ecuador and Peru during the 20th century.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

War

1943 · 83 yrs

Battle of Kursk

The Battle of Kursk, also called the Battle of the Kursk Salient, was a major World War II Eastern Front battle between the forces of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union near Kursk in southwestern Russia during the summer of 1943, resulting in a Soviet victory.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

War

2009 · 17 yrs

July 2009 Ürümqi riots

A series of violent riots over several days broke out on 5 July 2009 in Ürümqi, the capital city of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, in northwestern China. The first day's rioting, which involved at least 1,000 Uyghurs, began as a protest, but escalated into violent attacks that mainly targeted Han people.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Tragedy

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