Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/March 5
This is a list of selected March 5 anniversaries that appear in the "On this day" section of the Main Page. To suggest a new item, in most cases, you can be bold and edit this page. Please read the selected anniversaries guidelines before making your edit. However, if your addition might be controversial or on a day that is or will soon be on the Main Page, please post your suggestion on the talk page instead.
Please note that the events listed on the Main Page are chosen based more on relative article quality and to maintain a mix of topics, not based solely on how important or significant their subjects are. Only four to five events are posted at a time and thus not everything that is "most important and significant" can be listed. In addition, an event is generally not posted this year if it is also the subject of the scheduled featured article or picture of the day.
To report an error when this appears on the Main Page, see Main Page errors. Please remember that this list defers to the supporting articles, so it is best to achieve consensus and make any necessary changes there first.
March 5: Lei Feng Day in the People's Republic of China; St Piran's Day in Cornwall (United Kingdom)
- 1850 – The Britannia Bridge (pictured), a tubular bridge of wrought iron rectangular box-section spans crossing the Menai Strait between the island of Anglesey and the mainland of Wales, opened.
- 1940 – World War II: Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and the Politburo signed an order for the execution of about 22,000 Polish military officers, policemen, intellectuals and civilian prisoners of war that were captured during the Soviet invasion of Poland.
- 1946 – The term "Iron Curtain", describing the symbolic, ideological, and physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas during the Cold War, was popularized by former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill during a speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, US.
- 1960 – British marine biologist Alister Hardy introduced his aquatic ape hypothesis, theorizing that swimming and diving for food exerted a strong evolutionary effect that was partly responsible for the divergence between the common ancestors of humans and other great apes.