Sam Houston

1836

Sam Houston elected as president of Texas

Born on This Day

Bob Newhart Portrait Session

Bob Newhart

1929 - 2024

Award-winning actor and comedian known for his buttoned-up persona in two popular sitcoms that both bore his name.

Photo of QUEEN

Freddie Mercury

1946 - 1991

Queen frontman noted for his showmanship and four-octave vocals on hits like "Bohemian Rhapsody."

Civil Rights Trailblazer

Claudette Colvin

1939 -

Civil-rights hero arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus before Rosa Parks's more famous protest.

2024

SEP

5

Double-leg amputee Oksana Masters wins her 9th Paralympic gold—19th overall across three sports: rowing, cycling and skiing. Born with disabilities linked to the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and abandoned as a baby, she was adopted by a U.S. family.

Timeline

Also on This Day in History

Discover more of the major events, famous births, notable deaths and everything else history-making that happened on September 5th

1774

First Continental Congress convenes

In response to the British Parliament’s enactment of the Coercive Acts in the American colonies, the first session of the Continental Congress convenes at Carpenter’s Hall in Philadelphia. Fifty-six delegates from all the colonies except Georgia drafted a declaration of rights and grievances and elected Virginian Peyton Randolph as the first president of Congress. Patrick […]

The Coercive Acts

1847

Outlaw Jesse James is born in Missouri

Seen by some as a vicious murderer and by others as a gallant Robin Hood, the famous outlaw Jesse Woodson James is born on September 5, 1847, in Clay County, Missouri. Jesse and his older brother Franklin lost their father in 1849, when the Reverend Robert James abandoned his young family and disappeared forever into […]

1877

Sioux military leader Crazy Horse is killed

Oglala Sioux leader Crazy Horse is fatally bayoneted by a U.S. soldier after resisting confinement in a guardhouse at Fort Robinson, Nebraska. A year earlier, Crazy Horse was among the Sioux leaders who defeated George Armstrong Custer’s Seventh Cavalry at the Battle of Little Bighorn in Montana Territory. The battle, in which 265 members of the […]

1957

The New York Times gives “On the Road” a rave review

On September 5, 1957, New York Times writer Gilbert Millstein gives a rave review to On the Road, the second novel (hardly anyone had read the first) by a 35-year-old Columbia University dropout named Jack Kerouac. “Jack went to bed obscure,” Kerouac’s girlfriend told a reporter, “and woke up famous.” On the Road is an […]

1969

Lt. William Calley charged for My Lai massacre

Lt. William Calley is charged with six specifications of premeditated murder in the death of 109 Vietnamese civilians at My Lai in March 1968. Calley, a platoon leader in Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry, 11th Infantry Brigade (Light) of the 23rd (Americal) Division had led his men in a massacre of Vietnamese civilians, including […]

1970

U.S. forces launch last major American operation of the war

On September 5, the 101st Airborne Division (Airmobile), in coordination with the South Vietnamese (ARVN) 1st Infantry Division, initiates Operation Jefferson Glen in Thua Thien Province west of Hue. This operation lasted until October 1971, and was one of the last major large-scale military operations in which U.S. ground forces would take part. President Nixon […]

1972

Massacre begins at Munich Olympics

During the 1972 Summer Olympics at Munich, in the early morning of September 5, a group of Palestinian terrorists storms the Olympic Village apartment of the Israeli athletes, killing two and taking nine others hostage. The terrorists were part of a group known as Black September, in return for the release of the hostages, they […]

1975

Gerald Ford survives first assassination attempt

September 5, 1975, President Gerald R. Ford survives an attempt on his life in Sacramento, California. The assailant, a petite, red haired, freckle-faced young woman named Lynette Fromme, approached the president while he was walking near the California Capitol and raised a .45 caliber handgun toward him. Before she was able to fire off a […]

1991

AIDS activists unfurl a giant condom over Senator Jesse Helms’ home

On the sunny morning of September 5, 1991, in the Washington, D.C. suburb of Arlington, Virginia, a group of activists arrive at the home of North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms. Using ladders, several of them climb to the roof of the house, and from there they unfurl a giant piece of fabric, which is then […]

2006

Katie Couric makes historic network anchor debut

On September 5, 2006, Katie Couric makes headlines—and TV history—with her highly publicized debut as the first female solo anchor of a weekday network evening news broadcast, CBS Evening News with Katie Couric. Couric, who served as co-anchor of The Today Show from 1991 to 2006, replaced Dan Rather, who anchored CBS Evening News from […]

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