Historical Events on Thursday, 5th February

05/02/2020

United States President Donald Trump is acquitted by the United States Senate in his first impeachment trial.

Donald John Trump is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the 45th president from 2017 to 2021.

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Pegasus Airlines Flight 2193 overshoots the runway at Sabiha Gökçen International Airport and crashes, killing three people and injuring 179.

Pegasus Airlines Flight 2193 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight from İzmir to Istanbul in Turkey operated by Pegasus Airlines. On 5 February 2020, the Boeing 737-800 operating the route skidded off the runway while landing at Istanbul-Sabiha Gökçen International Airport, Turkey. Three people were killed, 179 people were injured, and the aircraft was destroyed. This was the first fatal accident in the airline's history. The accident came less than a month after another Pegasus Airlines accident involving a Boeing 737 skidding off the runway at the same airport.

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05/02/2019

Pope Francis becomes the first Pope in history to visit and perform papal mass in the Arabian Peninsula during his visit to Abu Dhabi.

Pope Francis was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of Vatican City from 13 March 2013 until his death in 2025. He was the first Jesuit pope, the first Latin American, and the first born or raised outside Europe since the 8th-century Syrian pope Gregory III.

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05/02/2016

New Zealand politician Steven Joyce is hit by a flung rubber dildo in a Waitangi Day protest.

Steven Leonard Joyce is a New Zealand former politician, who entered the New Zealand House of Representatives in 2008 as a member of the New Zealand National Party. As a broadcasting entrepreneur with RadioWorks, he was a millionaire before he entered politics. In 2008 he became Minister of Transport and Minister for Communications and Information Technology. He later became Minister of Science and Innovation, and then served as Minister of Finance and Minister for Infrastructure.

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05/02/2008

A major tornado outbreak across the Southern United States kills 57.

A deadly tornado outbreak affected the Southern United States and the lower Ohio Valley on February 5 and 6, 2008. The event, referred to as the Super Tuesday Tornado Outbreak by the National Weather Service (NWS), began on Super Tuesday, while 24 states in the United States were holding primary elections and caucuses to select the presidential candidates for the upcoming presidential election. Missouri, Illinois, Arkansas, Alabama, and Tennessee were among the affected regions in which primaries were being held. Some voting locations were forced to close early due to the approaching severe weather.

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05/02/2004

Rebels from the Revolutionary Artibonite Resistance Front capture the city of Gonaïves, starting the 2004 Haiti rebellion.

The National Revolutionary Front for the Liberation and Reconstruction of Haiti was a rebel group in Haiti that controlled most of the country following the 2004 Haitian coup d'état. It was briefly known as the "Revolutionary Artibonite Resistance Front", after the country's central Artibonite region, before being renamed on February 19, 2004, to emphasize its national scope.

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05/02/2000

Russian forces massacre at least 60 civilians in the Novye Aldi suburb of Grozny, Chechnya.

The Novye Aldi massacre was the mass murder of Chechen civilians on February 5, 2000, in which Russian forces went on a cleansing operation (zachistka), summarily executing dozens. The village had been cluster-bombed a day prior to the massacre, and local residents urged to come out for inspection the next day. Upon entering the village, Russian forces shot their victims with automatic fire at close range. The killings were accompanied by looting, rape, arson and robbery. As a result of the deadly rampage by Russian forces, up to 82 civilians were killed in the spree. Houses of civilians were burnt in an attempt to destroy evidence of summary executions and other crimes. Looting took place on a large scale and organised manner.

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05/02/1997

The so-called Big Three banks in Switzerland announce the creation of a $71 million fund to aid Holocaust survivors and their families.

Banking in Switzerland dates to the early 18th century through Switzerland's merchant trade and over the centuries has grown into a complex and regulated international industry. Banking is seen as emblematic of Switzerland and the country has been one of the largest, if not largest, offshore financial centers and tax havens in the world since the mid-20th century, with a long history of banking secrecy, security and client confidentiality reaching back to the early 1700s. Starting as a way to protect wealthy European banking interests, Swiss banking secrecy was codified in 1934 with the passage of a landmark federal law, the Federal Act on Banks and Savings Banks. These laws were used to protect assets of persons being persecuted by Nazi authorities but have also been used by people and institutions seeking to illegally evade taxes, hide assets, or to commit other financial crime.

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05/02/1994

Byron De La Beckwith is convicted of the 1963 murder of civil rights leader Medgar Evers.

Byron De La Beckwith Jr. was an American white supremacist and member of the Ku Klux Klan who murdered civil rights leader Medgar Evers on June 12, 1963, in Jackson, Mississippi.

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Markale massacres, more than 60 people are killed and some 200 wounded as a mortar shell explodes in a downtown marketplace in Sarajevo.

The Markale market shelling or Markale massacres were two separate bombardments, with at least one of them confirmed to have been carried out by the Army of Republika Srpska, targeting civilians during the siege of Sarajevo in the Bosnian War. They occurred at the Markale (marketplace) located in the historic core of Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

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05/02/1988

Manuel Noriega is indicted on drug smuggling and money laundering charges.

Manuel Antonio Noriega Moreno was a Panamanian military officer and politician who was the de facto ruler of Panama from 1983 to 1989. He never officially served as president of Panama, instead ruling as an unelected military dictator through puppet presidents. Amassing a personal fortune through drug trafficking operations by the Panamanian military, Noriega had longstanding ties with American intelligence agencies before the United States invasion of Panama removed him from power.

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05/02/1985

Ugo Vetere, then the mayor of Rome, and Chedli Klibi, then the mayor of Carthage, meet in Tunis to sign a treaty of friendship officially ending the Third Punic War which lasted 2,131 years.

Ugo Vetere was an Italian Communist Party politician. He was born in Reggio Calabria. He became mayor of Rome in 1981, after the death of his predecessor and served until 1985. He served in the Chamber of Deputies of Italy in Legislature VI, Legislature VII, Legislature VIII and in the Senate of the Republic in Legislature X.

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05/02/1981

Operation Soap: The Metropolitan Toronto Police Force raids four gay bathhouses in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, arresting just under 300, triggering mass protest and rallies.

Operation Soap was a raid by the Metropolitan Toronto Police against four gay bathhouses in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, which took place on February 5, 1981. Nearly three hundred men were arrested, the largest mass arrest in Canada since the 1970 October crisis, before the record was broken during the 2006 Stanley Cup Playoffs in Edmonton, Alberta.

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05/02/1975

Riots break out in Lima, Peru after the police forces go on strike the day before. The uprising (locally known as the Limazo) is bloodily suppressed by the military dictatorship.

Lima is the capital and largest city of Peru, as well as a primate city. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín Rivers, in the desert zone of the central coastal part of the country, overlooking the Pacific Ocean. The city is considered the political, cultural, financial and commercial center of Peru. Due to its geostrategic importance, the Globalization and World Cities Research Network has categorized it as a "beta" tier city. Jurisdictionally, the metropolis extends mainly within the province of Lima and in a smaller portion, to the west, within the Constitutional Province of Callao, where the seaport and the Jorge Chávez Airport are located. Both provinces have had regional autonomy since 2002.

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05/02/1971

Astronauts land on the Moon in the Apollo 14 mission.

Apollo 14 was the eighth crewed mission in the United States Apollo program, the third to land on the Moon, and the first to land in the lunar highlands. It was the last of the "H missions", landings at specific sites of scientific interest on the Moon for two-day stays with two lunar extravehicular activities.

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05/02/1967

Cultural Revolution: The Shanghai People's Commune is formally proclaimed, with Yao Wenyuan and Zhang Chunqiao being appointed as its leaders.

The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC). It was launched by CCP chairman Mao Zedong in 1966 and lasted until his death in 1976. Its stated goal was to preserve Chinese communism by purging remnants of capitalist and traditional elements from Chinese society.

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05/02/1963

The European Court of Justice's ruling in Van Gend en Loos v Nederlandse Administratie der Belastingen establishes the principle of direct effect, one of the most important, if not the most important, decisions in the development of European Union law.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ), officially the Court of Justice, is the supreme court of the European Union (EU) in matters of European Union law. As a part of the Court of Justice of the European Union, it is tasked with interpreting EU law and ensuring its uniform application across all EU member states under Article 263 of the Treaty of the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU).

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05/02/1962

French President Charles de Gaulle calls for Algeria to be granted independence.

The president of France, officially the president of the French Republic or president of the Republic, is the executive head of state of France, and the commander-in-chief of the French Armed Forces. As the presidency is the supreme magistracy of the country, the position is the highest office in France. The powers, functions and duties of prior presidential offices, in addition to their relation with the prime minister and government of France, have over time differed with the various constitutional documents since the Second Republic.

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05/02/1958

Gamal Abdel Nasser is nominated to be the first president of the United Arab Republic.

Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein was an Egyptian military officer and revolutionary who served as the second president of Egypt from 1954 until his death in 1970. Nasser led the Egyptian revolution of 1952 and introduced far-reaching land reforms the following year. Following a 1954 assassination attempt by a Muslim Brotherhood member, he cracked down on the organization, put President Mohamed Naguib under house arrest and assumed executive office. He was formally elected president in June 1956.

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A hydrogen bomb known as the Tybee Bomb is lost by the US Air Force off the coast of Savannah, Georgia, never to be recovered.

A thermonuclear weapon, fusion weapon or hydrogen bomb (H-bomb) is a second-generation nuclear weapon, using nuclear fusion. The most destructive weapons ever created, their yields typically exceed first-generation nuclear weapons by twenty times, with far lower mass and volume requirements. Characteristics of fusion reactions can make possible the use of non-fissile depleted uranium as the weapon's main fuel, thus allowing more efficient use of scarce fissile material. Its multi-stage design is distinct from the usage of fusion in simpler boosted fission weapons. The first full-scale thermonuclear test was carried out by the United States in 1952, and the concept has since been employed by at least the five NPT-recognized nuclear-weapon states: the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, China, and France.

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05/02/1945

World War II: General Douglas MacArthur returns to Manila.

Douglas MacArthur was an American general who served as a top commander during World War II and the Korean War, achieving the rank of General of the Army. He served with distinction in World War I; as chief of staff of the United States Army from 1930 to 1935; as Supreme Commander, Southwest Pacific Area, from 1942 to 1945; as Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers overseeing the occupation of Japan from 1945 to 1951; and as head of the United Nations Command in the Korean War from 1950 to 1951. MacArthur was nominated for the Medal of Honor three times, and awarded it for his WWII service in the Philippines. He is one of only five people to hold the rank of General of the Army, and the only person to hold the rank of Field Marshal in the Philippine Army.

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05/02/1941

World War II: Allied forces begin the Battle of Keren to capture Keren, Eritrea.

World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated. Tanks and aircraft played major roles, the latter enabling the strategic bombing of cities and delivery of the only nuclear weapons used in war. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the death of 60 to 75 million people. Millions died as a result of massacres, starvation, disease, and genocides including the Holocaust. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.

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05/02/1933

Mutiny on Royal Netherlands Navy warship HNLMS De Zeven Provinciën off the coast of Sumatra, Dutch East Indies.

The Royal Netherlands Navy (RNLN) is the maritime service branch of the Netherlands Armed Forces. It traces its history to 8 January 1488, making it the third-oldest navy in the world.

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05/02/1924

The Royal Greenwich Observatory begins broadcasting the hourly time signals known as the Greenwich Time Signal.

The Royal Observatory, Greenwich is an observatory situated on a hill in Greenwich Park in south east London, overlooking the River Thames to the north. It played a major role in the history of astronomy and navigation, and because the Prime Meridian passed through it, it gave its name to Greenwich Mean Time, the precursor to today's Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). The ROG has the IAU observatory code of 000, the first in the list. ROG, the National Maritime Museum, the Queen's House and the clipper ship Cutty Sark are collectively designated Royal Museums Greenwich.

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05/02/1919

Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and D. W. Griffith launch United Artists.

Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin Jr. was an English comic actor, filmmaker, film editor and composer who rose to fame in the era of silent film. He became a worldwide icon through his screen persona, the Tramp, and is considered one of the film industry's most important figures. His career spanned more than 75 years, from his childhood in the Victorian era until a year before his death in 1977, and encompassed both accolade and controversy.

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05/02/1918

Stephen W. Thompson shoots down a German airplane; this is the first aerial victory by the U.S. military.

Stephen W. Thompson was an American aviator of World War I. Flying as a gunner on a French aircraft in February 1918, he became the first member of the United States military to shoot down an enemy aircraft. Kiffin Rockwell achieved an earlier aerial victory as an American volunteer member of the French Lafayette Escadrille in 1916.

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SS Tuscania is torpedoed off the coast of Ireland; it is the first ship carrying American troops to Europe to be torpedoed and sunk.

SS Tuscania was a luxury liner of the Anchor Line, a subsidiary of the Cunard Line and named after Tuscania, Italy. In 1918 the ship was torpedoed and sunk by the German U-boat UB-77 while transporting American troops to Europe with the loss of 210 lives.

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05/02/1917

The current constitution of Mexico is adopted, establishing a federal republic with powers separated into independent executive, legislative, and judicial branches.

The current Constitution of Mexico, formally the Political Constitution of the United Mexican States, was drafted in Santiago de Querétaro, in the State of Querétaro, Mexico, by a constituent convention during the Mexican Revolution. It was approved by the Constituent Congress on 5 February 1917, and was later amended several times. It is the successor to the Constitution of 1857, and earlier Mexican constitutions. "The Constitution of 1917 is the legal triumph of the Mexican Revolution. To some it is the revolution."

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The Congress of the United States passes the Immigration Act of 1917 over President Woodrow Wilson's veto.

The United States Congress is the legislative branch of the federal government of the United States. It is a bicameral legislature, including a lower body, the U.S. House of Representatives, and an upper body, the U.S. Senate. They both meet in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C.

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05/02/1913

Greek military aviators Michael Moutoussis and Aristeidis Moraitinis perform the first naval air mission in history, with a Farman MF.7 hydroplane.

The Hellenic Air Force is the air force of Greece. It is considered to be one of the largest air forces in NATO, and is globally placed 18th out of 139 countries. Under the Kingdom of Greece from 1935 to 1973, it was previously known as the Royal Hellenic Air Force (RHAF).

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Claudio Monteverdi's last opera L'incoronazione di Poppea was performed theatrically for the first time in more than 250 years.

Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi was an Italian composer, choirmaster and string player. A composer of both secular and sacred music, and a pioneer in the development of opera, he is considered a crucial transitional figure between the Renaissance and Baroque periods of music history.

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05/02/1907

Belgian chemist Leo Baekeland announces the creation of Bakelite, the world's first synthetic plastic.

Leo Hendrik Baekeland was a Belgian chemist. Educated in Belgium and Germany, he spent most of his career in the United States. He is best known for the inventions of Velox photographic paper in 1893, and Bakelite in 1907. He has been called "The Father of the Plastics Industry" for his invention of Bakelite, an inexpensive, non-flammable and versatile plastic, which marked the beginning of the modern plastics industry.

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05/02/1905

In Mexico, the General Hospital of Mexico is inaugurated, initially with four basic specialties.

The General Hospital of Mexico is a hospital in Mexico City, operated by the Secretariat of Health, the federal government department in charge of all social health services in Mexico.

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05/02/1901

J. P. Morgan incorporates U.S. Steel in the state of New Jersey, although the company would not start doing business until February 25 and the assets of Andrew Carnegie's Carnegie Steel Company, Elbert H. Gary's Federal Steel Company, and William Henry Moore's National Steel Company were not acquired until April 1.

John Pierpont Morgan Sr. was an American financier and investment banker who dominated corporate finance on Wall Street throughout the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. As the head of the banking firm that ultimately became known as JPMorgan Chase & Co., he was a driving force behind the wave of industrial consolidations in the United States at the turn of the twentieth century.

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05/02/1885

King Leopold II of Belgium establishes the Congo as a personal possession.

Leopold II was the second king of the Belgians from 1865 to 1909, and the founder and sole owner of the Congo Free State from 1885 to 1908.

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05/02/1869

The largest alluvial gold nugget in history, called the "Welcome Stranger", is found in Moliagul, Victoria, Australia.

Alluvium is loose clay, silt, sand, or gravel that has been deposited by running water in a stream bed, on a floodplain, in an alluvial fan or beach, or in similar settings. Alluvium is also sometimes called alluvial deposit. Alluvium is typically geologically young and is not consolidated into solid rock. Sediments deposited underwater, in seas, estuaries, lakes, or ponds, are not described as alluvium. Floodplain alluvium can be highly fertile, and supported some of the earliest human civilizations.

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05/02/1859

Alexandru Ioan Cuza, Prince of Moldavia, is also elected as prince of Wallachia, joining the two principalities as a personal union called the United Principalities, an autonomous region within the Ottoman Empire, which ushered in the birth of the modern Romanian state.

Alexandru Ioan Cuza was the first domnitor (prince) of the Romanian Principalities through his double election as Prince of Moldavia on 5 January 1859 and Prince of Wallachia on 24 January 1859, which resulted in the unification of the two states. He was a prominent figure of the Moldavian Revolution of 1848. Following his double election, he initiated a series of liberal and progressive reforms that contributed to the modernization of Romanian society and of state structures.

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05/02/1852

The New Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia, one of the largest and oldest museums in the world, opens to the public.

The State Hermitage Museum is a museum of art and culture in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and holds the largest collection of paintings in the world. It was founded in 1764 when Empress Catherine the Great acquired a collection of paintings from the Berlin merchant Johann Ernst Gotzkowsky. The museum celebrates the anniversary of its founding each year on 7 December, Saint Catherine's Day. It has been open to the public since 1852. The Art Newspaper ranked the museum 10th in their list of the most visited art museums, with 2,812,913 visitors in 2022.

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05/02/1818

Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte ascends to the thrones of Sweden and Norway.

Charles XIV John was King of Sweden and Norway from 1818 until his death in 1844 and the first monarch of the Bernadotte dynasty. In Norway, he is known as Charles III John ; before he became royalty in Sweden, his name was Jean-Baptiste Jules Bernadotte. During the Napoleonic Wars, he participated in several battles as a Marshal of France.

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05/02/1810

Peninsular War: Siege of Cádiz begins.

The Peninsular War (1808–1814) was fought in the Iberian Peninsula by the Iberian nations Spain and Portugal, along with the United Kingdom, against the invading and occupying forces of the First French Empire during the Napoleonic Wars. In Spain, it is considered to overlap with the Spanish War of Independence. It overlapped with the War of the Fifth Coalition (1809) and the War of the Sixth Coalition (1812–1814).

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05/02/1783

In Calabria, a sequence of strong earthquakes begins.

Calabria is a region in Southern Italy. It is a peninsula bordered by the region Basilicata to the north, the Ionian Sea to the east, the Strait of Messina to the southwest, which separates it from Sicily, and the Tyrrhenian Sea to the west. It has 1,832,147 residents as of 2025 across a total area of 15,222 km2 (5,877 sq mi). Catanzaro is the region's capital.

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05/02/1597

A group of early Japanese Christians are killed by the new government of Japan for being seen as a threat to Japanese society.

Kakure Kirishitan is a modern term for a member of the Catholic Church in Japan who went underground at the start of the Edo period in the early 17th century due to Christianity's repression by the Tokugawa shogunate. The term is particularly used today for those who have refused to embrace modern Roman Catholic practices and still hold onto the traditions established during the times of persecution.

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05/02/1576

Henry of Navarre abjures Catholicism at Tours and rejoins the Protestant forces in the French Wars of Religion.

Henry IV, also known by the epithets Good King Henry or Henry the Great, was King of Navarre from 1572 and King of France from 1589 to 1610. He was the first monarch of France from the House of Bourbon, a cadet branch of the Capetian dynasty. He pragmatically balanced the interests of the Catholic and Protestant parties in France, as well as among the European states. He was assassinated in Paris in 1610 by a Catholic zealot, and was succeeded by his son Louis XIII.

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05/02/1265

Pope Clement IV is elected as the 183rd Bishop of Rome and head of the Catholic Church.

Pope Clement IV, born Gui Foucois and also known as Guy le Gros, was Bishop of Le Puy (1257–1260), Archbishop of Narbonne (1259–1261), Cardinal of Sabina (1261–1265), and head of the Catholic Church from 5 February 1265 until his death. His election as pope occurred at a conclave held at Perugia that lasted four months while cardinals argued over whether to call in Charles I of Anjou, the youngest brother of Louis IX of France, to carry on the papal war against the Hohenstaufens. Pope Clement was a patron of Thomas Aquinas and of Roger Bacon, encouraging Bacon in the writing of his Opus Majus, which included important treatises on optics and the scientific method.

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05/02/0756

An Lushan proclaims himself Emperor of China, founding the short-lived state of Yan.

An Lushan was a Chinese military general and rebel leader during the Tang dynasty and is primarily known for leading the An Lushan rebellion which the Tang government stopped by killing millions of people.

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05/02/0062

An earthquake with an estimated intensity between IX or X on the Mercalli scale occurs in Pompeii, Italy.

AD 62 (LXII) was a common year starting on Friday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Marius and Afinius. The denomination AD 62 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.

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01/01/1970

Caesar Augustus is granted the title pater patriae by the Roman Senate.

Augustus, also known as Octavian, was the founder of the Roman Empire and the first Roman emperor from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. The reign of Augustus initiated an imperial cult and an era of imperial peace in which the Roman world was largely free of armed conflict. The principate, a style of government where the emperor showed nominal deference to the Senate, was established during his reign and lasted until the Crisis of the Third Century.

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