more events on October 5
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2000
Slobodan Milosevic, president of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, resigns in the wake of mass protest demonstrations.
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1988
Brazil’s Constituent Assembly authorizes the nation’s new constitution.
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1986
Britain’s The Sunday Times newspaper publishes details of Israel’s secret nuclear weapons development program.
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1970
Members of the Quebec Liberation Front (QLF) kidnap British Trade Commissioner James Cross in Montreal, resulting in the October Crisis and Canada’s first peacetime use of the War Measures Act.
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The US Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is established.
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1969
Monty Python’s Flying Circus debuts on BBC One.
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1968
Police attack civil rights demonstrators in Derry, Northern Ireland; the event is considered to be the beginning of "The Troubles."
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1966
A sodium cooling system malfunction causes a partial core meltdown at the Enrico Fermi demonstration breeder reactor near Detroit. Radiation is contained.
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1965
Mario Lemieux, hockey player, led Pittsburgh Penguins to consecutive Stanley Cups (1991-92).
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U.S. forces in Saigon receive permission to use tear gas.
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1963
Laura Davies, England’s top professional female golfer.
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1962
The first James Bond film, Dr. No starring Sean Connery, debuts.
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1959
Maya Lin, American architect who designed the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C.
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1957
Bernie Mac, comedian, actor; member of the Original Kings of Comedy.
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1952
Clive Barker, author, director (Hellraiser, Candyman).
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1948
A magnitude 7.3 earthquake near Ashgabat in the USSR kills tens of thousands; estimates range from 110,000 to 176,000.
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1947
US President Harry S Truman delivers the first televised White House address.
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1943
Steve Miller, singer, songwriter, guitarist; lead singer of Steve Miller Band.
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Imperial Japanese forces execute 98 American POWs on Wake Island.
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1938
Germany invalidates Jews’ passports.
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1937
Barry Switzer, longtime coach of the University of Oklahoma, later coach of the Dallas Cowboys; one of only two head coaches to win both an NCAA college football championship and a Super Bowl.
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1936
Václav Havel, Czech dissident dramatist who became the first freely elected president of Czechoslovakia in 55 years.
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1931
Clyde Pangborn and Hugh Herndon complete the first heavier than air nonstop flight over the Pacific. Their flight, begun October 3, lasted 41 hours, 31 minutes and covered 5,000 miles. They piloted their Bellanca CH-200 monoplane from Samushiro, 300 miles north of Tokyo, Japan, to Wenatchee, Washington.
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1921
The World Series is broadcast on radio for the first time.
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1915
Bulgaria enters World War I on the side of the Central Powers.
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Germany issues an apology and promises for payment for the 128 American passengers killed in the sinking of the British ship Lusitania.
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1911
Flann O’Brien, Irish novelist and playwright (The Hard Life, The Third Policeman).
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1902
Ray Croc, founder of the McDonald’s hamburger franchise in 1955.
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1882
Robert Goddard, American rocket scientist, held more than 200 rocketry patents.
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Outlaw Frank James surrenders in Missouri six months after brother Jesse’s assassination.
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1880
The first ball-point pen is patented on this day by Alonzo T. Cross.
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1877
Nez Perce Chief Joseph surrenders to Colonel Nelson Miles in Montana Territory, after a 1,700-mile trek to reach Canada falls 40 miles short.
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1864
At the Battle of Allatoona, a small Union post is saved from Lt. Gen. John Bell Hood’s army.
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1830
Chester A. Arthur, 21st president of the United States (1881-1885).
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1821
Greek rebels capture Tripolitza, the main Turkish fort in the Peloponnese area of Greece.
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1813
U.S. victory at the Battle of the Thames, in Ontario, broke Britain’s Indian allies with the death of Shawnee Chief Tecumseh, and made the Detroit frontier safe.
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1795
The day after he routed counterrevolutionaries in Paris, Napoleon Bonaparte accepts their formal surrender.
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1762
The British fleet bombards and captures Spanish-held Manila in the Philippines.