The New York-to-Washington train had 21 cars, 700 passengers—and millions of trackside mourners.

1870

A huge section of the city of Constantinople, Turkey, is set ablaze on June 5, 1870. When the smoke finally cleared, 9,000 homes were destroyed and 2,000 people were dead. A young girl was carrying a hot piece of charcoal to her family’s kitchen in an iron pan when she tripped, sending the charcoal out […]

0:48 m read

1880

On June 5, 1880, George Bernard Shaw, 23, quits his job at the Edison Telephone Company in order to write. Shaw was born in Dublin, Ireland, and left school at the age of 14 to work in a land agent’s office. In 1876, he quit and moved to London, where his mother, a music teacher, […]

1:42 m read

1888

On June 5, 1888, President Grover Cleveland vetoes a bill that would have given a pension to war widow Johanna Loewinger, whose husband died 14 years after being discharged from the army. Mr. Loewinger served in the Civil War, enlisting on June 28, 1861. He was discharged a little less than a year later for […]

1:04 m read

1944

On June 5, 1944, more than 1,000 British bombers drop 5,000 tons of bombs on German gun batteries placed at the Normandy assault area, while 3,000 Allied ships cross the English Channel in preparation for the invasion of Normandy—D-Day. The day of the invasion of occupied France had been postponed repeatedly since May, mostly because […]

1947

In one of the most significant speeches of the Cold War, Secretary of State George C. Marshall calls on the United States to assist in the economic recovery of postwar Europe. His speech provided the impetus for the so-called Marshall Plan, under which the United States sent billions of dollars to Western Europe to rebuild […]

2:04 m read

1956

On June 5, 1956, in an appearance on “The Milton Berle Show,” Elvis Presley he set his guitar aside and put every part of his being into a blistering, scandalous performance of “Hound Dog.” By the end of 1955, Elvis Presley had nearly 18 months of nonstop touring behind him and two dozen singles already […]

2:06 m read

1963

On June 5, 1963, British Secretary of War John Profumo resigns his post following revelations that he had lied to the House of Commons about his sexual affair with Christine Keeler, an alleged prostitute. At the time of the affair, Keeler was also involved with Yevgeny “Eugene” Ivanov, a Soviet naval attache who some suspected […]

4:30 m read

1967

Israel responds to a build-up of Arab forces along its borders by launching a preemptive aerial attack against Egypt. Jordan subsequently entered the fray, but the Arab coalition was no match for Israel’s armed forces. In six days of fighting, Israel occupied the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt, the Golan Heights of Syria […]

1:34 m read

1969

On June 5, 1969, U.S. troops abandon Ap Bia Mountain. A spokesman for the 101st Airborne Division said that the U.S. troops “have completed their search of the mountain and are now continuing their reconnaissance-in-force mission throughout the A Shau Valley.” This announcement came amid the public outcry about what had become known as the […]

2:26 m read

1981

On June 5, 1981, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention publishes an article in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report describing five cases of a rare lung infection, PCP, in young, otherwise healthy gay men in Los Angeles. It was unknown at the time, but the article is describing the effects of AIDS. Today, […]

1:40 m read

2004

On June 5, 2004, Ronald Wilson Reagan, the 40th president of the United States, dies after a long struggle with Alzheimer’s disease. Reagan, who was also a well-known actor and served as governor of California, was a popular president known for restoring American confidence after the problems of the 1970s. Born on February 6, 1911, […]

6:30 m read

2004

On June 5, 2004, some 40 guests watch as the pop star and actress Jennifer Lopez weds her third husband, the singer Marc Anthony, in an intimate ceremony held in the backyard of Lopez’s home in Los Angeles. Lopez was born in 1970 in the Bronx, New York, and went on to earn admiration in […]

2:30 m read

2013

On June 5, 2013, Americans learned that their government was spying broadly on its own people. That’s when The Guardian, and later The Washington Post, published the first of a series of reports put together from documents leaked by an anonymous source. The material exposed a government-run surveillance program that monitored the communications records of […]

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