May 5 in History

The Guardian is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as The Manchester Guardian and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, The Guardian Weekly, The Guardian is part of the Guardian Media Group, owned by the Scott Trust Limited. The trust was created in 1936 to "secure the financial and editorial independence of The Guardian in perpetuity and to safeguard the journalistic freedom and liberal values of The Guardian free from commercial or political interference". The trust was converted into a limited company in 2008, with a constitution written so as to maintain for The Guardian the same protections as were built into the structure of the Scott Trust by its creators. Profits are reinvested in its journalism rather than distributed to owners or shareholders. It is considered a newspaper of record in the UK.

Cinco de Mayo is an annual celebration held on May 5 to celebrate Mexico's victory over the Second French Empire at the Battle of Puebla in 1862, led by General Ignacio Zaragoza. Zaragoza died months after the battle from an illness, however, and a larger French force ultimately defeated the Mexican army at the Second Battle of Puebla and then occupied Mexico City. Following the end of the American Civil War in 1865, the United States began lending money and guns to the Mexican Liberals, pushing France and Mexican Conservatives to the edge of defeat. At the opening of the French chambers in January 1866, Napoleon III announced that he would withdraw French troops from Mexico. In reply to a French request for American neutrality, the American secretary of state William H. Seward replied that French withdrawal from Mexico should be unconditional.

The conclusion of the American Civil War commenced with the articles of surrender agreement of the Army of Northern Virginia on April 9, at Appomattox Court House, by General Robert E. Lee and concluded with the surrender of CSS Shenandoah on November 6, 1865, bringing the hostilities of the American Civil War to a close. Legally, the war did not end until a proclamation by President Andrew Johnson on August 20, 1866, when he declared "that the said insurrection is at an end and that peace, order, tranquillity, and civil authority now exist in and throughout the whole of the United States of America." The Confederate government being in the final stages of collapse, the war ended by debellatio, with no definitive capitulation from the rapidly disintegrating Confederacy; rather, Lee's surrender marked the effective end of Confederate military operations. The Confederate cabinet held its final meeting on May 5, at which point it declared the Confederacy dissolved, ending its substantive existence; despite this, some remnant Confederate units did not surrender for another month.

The American Indian Wars, also known as the American Frontier Wars, and the Indian Wars, were initially fought by European colonial empires, the United States, and briefly the Confederate States of America and Republic of Texas against various American Indian tribes in North America. These conflicts occurred from the time of the earliest colonial settlements in the 17th century until the end of the 19th century. The various wars resulted from a wide variety of factors, the most common being the desire of settlers and governments for Indian tribes' lands. The European powers and their colonies enlisted allied Indian tribes to help them conduct warfare against each other's colonial settlements. After the American Revolution, many conflicts were local to specific states or regions and frequently involved disputes over land use; some entailed cycles of violent reprisal.

The Academia Peruana de la Lengua is an association of academics and experts on the use of the Spanish language in Peru. It was founded in Lima on May 5, 1887. Its first elected president was Francisco García Calderón. The second president was Ricardo Palma. It is a member of the Association of Spanish Language Academies.

In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("pitches") the baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter, who attempts to either make contact with the pitched ball or draw a walk. In the defensive numbering system used in baseball, the pitcher is assigned the number 1. The pitcher is often considered the most important player on the defensive side of the game, and as such is situated at the right end of the defensive spectrum. There are many different types of pitchers, such as the starting pitcher, relief pitcher, middle reliever, lefty specialist, setup man, and the closer.

The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the Second Party Congress in 1903. The Bolshevik party, formally established in 1912, seized power in Russia in the October Revolution of 1917 and was later renamed the Russian Communist Party, All-Union Communist Party, and ultimately the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Its ideology, based on Leninist and later Marxist–Leninist principles, became known as Bolshevism.

An earthquake affected Myanmar on 5 May 1930 with a moment magnitude (Mw ) of 7.4. The shock occurred 35 km (22 mi) beneath the surface with a maximum Rossi–Forel intensity of IX. The earthquake was the result of rupture along a 131 km (81 mi) segment of the Sagaing Fault—a major strike-slip fault that runs through the country. Extensive damage was reported in the southern part of the country, particularly in Bago and Yangon, where buildings collapsed and fires erupted. At least 550, and possibly up to 7,000 people were killed. A moderate tsunami struck the Burmese coast which caused minor damage to ships and a port. The earthquake was felt over 570,000 km2 (220,000 sq mi) and as far as Shan State and Thailand; it was followed by many aftershocks including several damaging ones. A further, related, earthquake in December was similarly sized and also occurred along the Sagaing Fault.

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.

The Prague uprising was a partially successful attempt by the Czech resistance movement to liberate the city of Prague from German occupation in May 1945, during the end of World War II. The preceding six years of occupation had fuelled anti-German sentiment and the rapid advance of Allied forces from the Red Army and the United States Army offered the resistance a chance of success.

The Battle of Castle Itter was fought on 5 May 1945, in the Austrian village of Itter in the North Tyrol region of the country, during the last days of the European Theater of World War II.

The Bonn–Paris conventions were signed in May 1952 and came into force after the 1955 ratification. The conventions put an end to the Allied occupation of West Germany.

The Council of Europe is an international organisation which aims to uphold human rights, democracy and the rule of law in Europe. Founded in 1949, it is Europe's oldest intergovernmental organisation, representing 46 European member states. The council is an official United Nations observer. It operates with an annual ordinary budget of 656 million euros.

Secretariat, also known as Big Red, was a champion American thoroughbred racehorse who was the ninth winner of the American Triple Crown, setting and still holding the fastest time record in all three of its constituent races. He became the first Triple Crown winner in 25 years and his record-breaking victory in the Belmont Stakes, which he won by 31 lengths, is often considered the greatest race ever run by a thoroughbred racehorse. During his racing career, he won five Eclipse Awards, including Horse of the Year honors at ages two and three. Widely regarded as one of the greatest racehorses of all time, he was nominated to the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 1974. In the Blood-Horse magazine List of the Top 100 U.S. Racehorses of the 20th Century, Secretariat was second to Man o' War.

Robert Gerard Sands was a member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) who died on hunger strike while imprisoned at HM Prison Maze in Northern Ireland. Sands helped to plan the 1976 Balmoral Furniture Company bombing in Dunmurry, which was followed by a gun battle with the Royal Ulster Constabulary. Sands was arrested while trying to escape and sentenced to 14 years for firearms possession.

The 1991 Washington, D.C., riot, sometimes referred to as the Mount Pleasant riot or Mount Pleasant Disturbance, occurred in May 1991, when rioting broke out in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood of Washington, D.C., in response to an African-American female police officer having shot a Salvadoran man in the chest following a Cinco de Mayo celebration.

In 1994, the District Court in Singapore sentenced an American teenager, Michael Fay, to be lashed six times with a cane for violating the Vandalism Act. This caused a temporary strain in relations between Singapore and the United States.

Kenya Airways Flight 507 was a scheduled international passenger service between Abidjan, Ivory Coast, and Nairobi, Kenya with a stopover in Douala, Cameroon, operated by Kenya Airways. On 5 May 2007, the Boeing 737-800 aircraft serving the flight crashed immediately after takeoff from Douala International Airport in Cameroon, killing all 114 occupants onboard.

The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) which coordinates responses to international public health issues and emergencies. It is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, and has six regional offices and 150 field offices worldwide. Only sovereign states are eligible to join, and it is the largest intergovernmental health organization at the international level.