August 5

1305 Sir William Wallace, the Scottish hero and champion of Scottish independence who beat Edward I at the battle of Stirling Bridge, is captured by the English.

1529 The Treaty of Cambrai is signed by Francis I of France and Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. whereby Francis renounces his claim to Italy and Charles renounces his claims to Burgundy.

1570 Spanish Jesuits led by Fray Batista Segura arrive in the Chesapeake Bay area of Virginia, for the purpose of converting the American Indians to Christianity. Six months later, the entire group Is massacred by the very Indians they had come to evangelize.

Humphrey' Map

1583 Sir Humphrey Gilbert founds the first English colony in North America at St. John's, Newfoundland.

1604 Birth: John Eliot, American "Apostle to the Indians". His evangelistic zeal led in 1649 to establishing the (missionary) Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England. Died in 1690.

1624 Birth: William Jamestown, in Virginia, the first black child born in English America.

1656 Eight Quakers from England arrive in Boston and are immediately imprisoned by the local Puritan authorities. The church-and-state amalgam of Puritanism looked upon non-ritual Quakerism with suspicion, regarding it as theologically apostate and politically subversive.

1716 In a devastating defeat, Prince Eugene of Savoy with a force of 40,000 Austrians defeats 150,000 Turks under Darnad Ali Pasha at the battle of Peterwardein. Over 30,000 Turks die.

1749 Birth: Thomas Lynch Jr, Signer of the Declaration of Independence. Note: Lynch was born in South Carolina but he received his education in England and graduated with honors at Cambridge. He studied law in London and then returned home in 1772. He was politically engaged as soon as he returned home, and was commissioned a company commander in the South Carolina regiment in 1775. Soon afterward he was elected to a seat in the Continental Congress. He fell ill shortly after signing the Declaration and retired from the Congress. At the close of 1776 he and his wife sailed for the West Indies. The ship disappeared and there is no record of his life after.

1763 Colonel Henry Bouquet decisively defeats the Indians at the Battle of Bushy Run in Pennsylvania during Pontiac's rebellion.

1772 The first partition of Poland is made, between Austria, Prussia and Russia.

1775 The first Spanish ship, San Carlos, enters San Francisco bay.

1815 Barbary Wars: A peace treaty with Tripoli, which followed treaties with Algeria and Tunis, brings a successful conclusion to Americas first war on terror.

1833 The village of Chicago is incorporated, with a population of approximately 250.

1846 Oregon country is divided between the US and Britain at the 49th parallel.

1850 The Australian Government Act grants representative governments to South Australia, Tasmania and Victoria.

1850 Birth: Edward John Eyre, Yorkshire-born explorer, colonial administrator and Governor of Jamaica and explorer: Lake Eyre and the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia are named after him.

1858 After several unsuccessful attempts, the first trans-Atlantic cable is completed by Cyrus W. Field, enabling telegraphic communication between United States and Britain. The service is ended on 1 September because the current is too weak.

1861 US Civil War: The US Army abolishes flogging.

1861 US Civil War: President Abraham Lincoln signs into law the first federal income tax. As a wartime measure, all incomes over $800 are to be taxed at the rate of three percent. It is rescinded in 1872.

1864 US Civil War: In Alabama, Union forces under Admiral David Farragut defeat the Confederates at the Battle of Mobile Bay.

1884 The cornerstone for the Statue of Liberty is laid at Bedloe's Island (now called Liberty Island), New York. The actual statue is accepted as a gift to the United States, from the people of France, by US President Grover Cleveland on 28 October 1886. The statue becomes a symbol of freedom to the European immigrants who passed it on their way to Ellis Island and their admittance to the United States.

1908 Birth: Miriam Rothschild, English scientist and writer.

1908 Birth: Harold Holt, Prime Minister of Australia (1966-67); supported US in Vietnam.

1910 Hitler testifies in court during a lawsuit he had filed against Reinhold Hanisch, an ex-business partner. Hitler had accused Hanish, an extremely shady character who lived with Hitler in a homeless shelter, of making off with the proceeds of some of Hitler's original paintings. Hitler, always effective in a courtroom setting, ultimately prevails.

1914 WW1: In a move designed to isolate Germany, British ships dredge up and cut the German transatlantic cables to America. Thereafter, the bulk of the war news will be routed through London and the British censors.

1914 WW1: Montenegro declares war against Austria-Hungary.

1914 WW1: The US makes a formal statement announcing it will remain neutral in the European war, but offers its services as a mediator in the mushrooming conflict. Cuba, Uruguay, Mexico and Argentina all proclaim their neutrality. (Schlesinger I)

1914 The US and Nicaragua sign a treaty granting canal rights to the US.

1914 Euclid Avenue and East 105th Street in Cleveland, Ohio becomes the first intersection in the US to be equipped with an electric traffic light.

1915 WW1: Gen. Max von Gallwitz's new German Twelfth Army captures Warsaw.

1916 WW1: The British navy defeats the Ottomans at the naval battle off Port Said, Egypt.

1917 WW1: Aug 4-Sep 10 Dispatch Runner Lance Corporal Adolf Hitler endures trench warfare in Upper Alsace with 3 Company, 16 Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment. (Maser)

1921 The cartoon "On the Road to Moscow", by Rollin Kirby, is published in the "New York World". It is the first cartoon to win a Pulitzer Prize and I can't locate a PIC of it.

1921 Mustapha Kemal Is appointed virtual ruler of the Ottoman Empire.

1923 Birth: Richard G. Kleindienst, one of the key officials who helped elect Richard Nixon to the presidency in 1969.

1926 Houdini stays in a coffin under water for 1 hour and 30 minutes. Note: He has subsequently exceeded his own record substantially.

1930 Birth: Professor Neil Armstrong, NASA astronaut, first man to walk on the moon.

1933 Holocaust: The German Lawyers' Association threatens to boycott German firms still employing Jewish lawyers.

1933 Poland signs an agreement with Danzig.

1933 Authorities in Hamburg order the removal of the Heinrich Heine monument from the city park.

1936 Dietrich Bonhoeffer is forbidden to lecture at the University of Berlin.

1937 Can anyone tell me the title of this painting and the artist who painted it?

1937 Church and Reich: The Nazi Propaganda Ministry forbids any further mention of Leo Schlageter or Horst Wessel in the Catholic press. This is another attempt by Goebbels and his staff to put an end to the Catholic practice of "borrowing" Nazi heroes.

1938 New laws regulating the meat and cattle industry in Poland virtually eliminate Jews from participation.

1939 Britain and France's joint military mission to Russia departs Britain for Leningrad on a slow-moving, passenger-cargo ship. Discussions have been arranged with Molotov in Moscow (See July 23). (Shirer I)

1939 Albert Foerster, Nazi Gauleiter of Danzig, flies to Berchtesgaden to confer with Hitler. Meanwhile, the customs dispute in Danzig is temporarily resolved, but is seen in other countries as a Nazi capitulation, infuriating Hitler.

1940 Latvia is absorbed into the Soviet Union as the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic.

1940 WW2: The first operational plan for the German invasion of the Soviet Union is presented to General Halder, Chief of Staff of the Military High Command.

1940 WW2: The Polish Air Force is reconstituted in Britain.

1941 WW2: The German army takes 410,000 Russian prisoners in Uman and Smolensk pockets in the Soviet Union.

1943 Resistance: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, age 37, is arrested and taken to Tegel Prison, Berlin; Dohnanyi and Dietrich's sister, Christine, also arrested

1943 WW2: The British Eighth Army, reinforced by Canadians, takes Catania and Paterno, Sicily.

1944 WW2: August 5-6 Hitler and Ion Antonescu hold their last meeting.

1944 WW2: Polish insurgents liberate a German labor camp in Warsaw. 348 Jewish prisoners are freed.

1944 The Warsaw Uprising: Warsaw insurgents liberate 384 Jewish survivors from a work group, who join the Uprising.

1951 Korea: The United Nations (UN) Command suspends armistice talks with the North Koreans when armed troops are spotted in neutral areas. Lt. Joe Kingston is en route to Korea, where he, like a lot of others, found himself retreating and advancing in a single day.

1953 Korea: Operation Big Switch: Prisoners are exchanged at Panmunjom.

1960 Upper Volta gains independence from France.

1962 Nelson Mandela is arrested for incitement and illegally leaving South Africa. The Black South African leader is arrested under charges of 'leaving the country illegally' and convicted to 5 years in prison. Two years later, he is charged with 'high treason' and convicted to life imprisonment. He is not released until 27 and a half years later.

1963 JFK's Greatest Achievement: The United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union sign The Limited Test Ban Treaty. The treaty banns nuclear tests in space, underwater, and in the atmosphere.

1964 The Nam: US aircraft bomb North Vietnam after North Vietnamese boats allegedly attack U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin.

1974 Watergate: US President Nixon states that he expects to be impeached and admits he had withheld information about the Watergate break-in.

1974 The comic strip Tank McNamara, by Jeff Millar and Bill Hinds, premieres in 75 newspapers.

1981 President Ronald Reagan begins firing 11,359 air-traffic controllers striking in violation of his order for them to return to work. The executive action, regarded as extreme by many, significantly slows air travel for months.

1986 It is revealed that artist Andrew Wyeth had secretly created 240 drawings and paintings of his neighbor. The works of Helga Testorf had been created over a 15-year period.

1989 In Honduras, five Central American presidents begin meeting to discuss the timetable for the dismantling of the Nicaraguan Contra bases.

1990 Gulf War 1: US President George HW Bush angrily denounces the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.

1990 A Tempe, Arizona, man is interviewed on ABC's 20/20, claiming to be the child actor who played Buckwheat in the classic 1930s Our Gang film-short series. Note: It is later discovered by the show's executive producer that the man, Doc English, was an imposter, and that there was a lapse in the follow-up research by the production team. The son of William 'Billy' Thomas and George 'Spanky' McFarland, phoned to report that the real Buckwheat had died in 1980. A formal apology for the error was made during the show's next broadcast.

1990 The United States sends one Marine company into Monrovia, Liberia's capital, to evacuate US citizens because of a rebel threat to arrest Americans to order to provoke much needed foreign intervention in the ongoing civil war.

1991 An investigation is formally launched by Democratic congressional leaders to find out if the release of American hostages was delayed until after the Reagan-Bush presidential election.

1991 Iraq admits to misleading UN inspectors about secret biological weapons and also admits extracting plutonium from fuel at a nuclear plant.

1994 Whitewater: A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals in Washington chooses Kenneth W. Starr to take over the Whitewater investigation from Robert Fiske. Kenneth Starr was solicitor general under President George HW Bush.

1994 Opponents of Fidel Castro clash with police in Havana as thousands of Cubans take to the high seas trying to reach the United States.

1994 US fighter-jets acting under NATO orders attack Bosnian Serb positions after the Serbs seized weapons from a United Nations (UN) depot. The weapons are returned.

1995 The United States and Vietnam declare an end to decades of enmity, formally establishing diplomatic ties and pledging a new era of cooperation.

1995 Croatian government forces seize the rebel Serb capital of Knin in a lightning assault designed to win back the breakaway region of Krajina after four years.

1996 Republican presidential hopeful Bob Dole proposes a half-a-trillion-dollar tax cut.

1998 Iraqi President Saddam Hussein begins not cooperating with UN weapons inspectors as Iraq demands the lifting of the UN sanctions imposed in 1991.

1999 You Never Know What You'll Find In The Attic: Music written by Johann Sebastian Bach is found in the Ukraine. The music was presumed destroyed over 50 years before during World War II. The material is found in the musical estate of Carl Phillipp Emanuel Bach, who was on of J.S. Bach's children.

1999 The US Senate confirms Richard C. Holbrooke as ambassador to the UN. Note: Holbrooke's confirmation had been held up for 14 months because of ethics allegations against him.

2001

2002 The US closes its consulate in Karachi, Pakistan. The consulate is closed after local authorities removed large concrete blocks and reopened the road in front of the building to normal traffic. Note: Having been there, I can tell you that it wasn't much of a loss.

2003

2004