On this day: November 5

Events on November 5

• 1138 Lý Anh Tông is enthroned as emperor of Vietnam at the age of two, beginning a 37-year reign. Wikipedia
• 1556 At the Second Battle of Panipat, forces of the Mughal emperor Akbar captured Hemu, the Hindu emperor of north India. Wikipedia
• 1757 Seven Years' War: Frederick the Great defeats the allied armies of France and the Holy Roman Empire at the Battle of Rossbach. Wikipedia
• 1811 Salvadoran priest José Matías Delgado rings the bells of La Merced church in San Salvador, calling for insurrection and launching the 1811 Independence Movement. Wikipedia
• 1862 American Civil War: Abraham Lincoln removes George B. McClellan as commander of the Army of the Potomac. Wikipedia
• 1862 American Indian Wars: In Minnesota, 303 Dakota warriors are found guilty of rape and murder of whites and are sentenced to death. Thirty-eight are ultimately hanged and the others reprieved. Wikipedia
• 1881 In New Zealand, 1600 armed volunteers and constabulary field forces led by Minister of Native Affairs John Bryce march on the pacifist Māori settlement at Parihaka, evicting upwards of 2000 residents, and destroying the settlement in the context of the New Zealand land confiscations. Wikipedia
• 1911 After declaring war on the Ottoman Empire on September 29, 1911, Italy annexes Tripoli and Cyrenaica. Wikipedia
• 1912 Woodrow Wilson is elected the 28th President of the United States, defeating incumbent William Howard Taft. Wikipedia
• 1914 World War I: France and the British Empire declare war on the Ottoman Empire. Wikipedia
• 1925 Secret agent Sidney Reilly, the first "super-spy" of the 20th century, is executed by the OGPU, the secret police of the Soviet Union. Wikipedia
• 1940 World War II: The British armed merchant cruiser HMS Jervis Bay is sunk by the German pocket battleship Admiral Scheer. Wikipedia
• 1940 Franklin D. Roosevelt is the first and only President of the United States to be elected to a third term. Wikipedia
• 1943 World War II: An unknown aircraft dropped four bombs on Vatican City, which maintained neutrality during the war. Wikipedia
• 1944 World War II: Allied forces began a military campaign on Japanese-occupied Singapore. Wikipedia
• 1955 After being destroyed in World War II, the rebuilt Vienna State Opera reopens with a performance of Beethoven's Fidelio. Wikipedia
• 1968 Richard Nixon is elected as 37th President of the United States. Wikipedia
• 1991 Tropical Storm Thelma causes flash floods in the Philippine city of Ormoc, killing more than 4,900 people. Wikipedia
• 1995 Aline Chrétien thwarted André Dallaire's attempt to assassinate her husband, Canadian prime minister Jean Chrétien, by locking the bedroom door in 24 Sussex Drive, their official residence in Ottawa. Wikipedia
• 1996 Bill Clinton is reelected President of the United States. Wikipedia
• 1996 Pakistani President Farooq Leghari dismisses the government of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and dissolves the National Assembly. Wikipedia
• 2006 Saddam Hussein, the former president of Iraq, and his co-defendants Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, are sentenced to death in the al-Dujail trial for their roles in the 1982 massacre of 148 Shia Muslims. Wikipedia
• 2007 The Android mobile operating system is unveiled by Google. Wikipedia
• 2009 U.S. Army Major Nidal Hasan murders 13 and wounds 32 at Fort Hood, Texas in the deadliest mass shooting at a U.S. military installation. Wikipedia
• 2010 JS Air Flight 201 crashes after takeoff from Jinnah International Airport in Karachi, Pakistan, killing all 21 aboard. Wikipedia
• 2024 Donald Trump becomes the first president of the United States to be elected to a non-consecutive second term in 132 years, since Grover Cleveland won the 1892 election. Wikipedia

Born on November 5

• 1615 Ibrahim of the Ottoman Empire (died 1648) Wikipedia
• 1854 Paul Sabatier, French chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1941) Wikipedia
• 1885 Will Durant, American historian and philosopher (died 1981) Wikipedia
• 1892 J. B. S. Haldane, English-Indian geneticist and biologist (died 1964) Wikipedia
• 1900 Ethelwynn Trewavas, British ichthyologist, over a dozen fish species named in her honor (died 1993) Wikipedia
• 1913 Vivien Leigh, Indian-British actress (died 1967) Wikipedia
• 1920 Douglass North, American economist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2015) Wikipedia
• 1923 Rudolf Augstein, German soldier and journalist, co-founder of Der Spiegel (died 2002) Wikipedia
• 1943 Sam Shepard, American playwright and actor (died 2017) Wikipedia
• 1948 William Daniel Phillips, American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate Wikipedia
• 1948 Bernard-Henri Lévy, French philosopher and author Wikipedia
• 1952 Vandana Shiva, Indian philosopher and author Wikipedia
• 1952 Oleh Blokhin, Ukrainian footballer and manager Wikipedia
• 1954 Jeffrey Sachs, American economist and academic Wikipedia
• 1959 Bryan Adams, Canadian singer-songwriter, guitarist, producer and actor Wikipedia
• 1960 Tilda Swinton, English actress Wikipedia
• 1963 Jean-Pierre Papin, French footballer and manager Wikipedia
• 1968 Sam Rockwell, American actor Wikipedia
• 1986 Kasper Schmeichel, Danish footballer Wikipedia
• 1988 Virat Kohli, Indian cricketer Wikipedia
• 1992 Marco Verratti, Italian footballer Wikipedia
• 1993 Dastonbek Otabolaev, Uzbekistani karateka Wikipedia

Died on November 5

• 425 Atticus, archbishop of Constantinople Wikipedia
• 1176 Diego Martínez de Villamayor, Castilian nobleman Wikipedia
• 1370 Casimir III the Great, Polish king (born 1310) Wikipedia
• 1807 Angelica Kauffman, painter (born 1741) Wikipedia
• 1879 James Clerk Maxwell, Scottish physicist and mathematician (born 1831) Wikipedia
• 1930 Christiaan Eijkman, Dutch physician and pathologist, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1858) Wikipedia
• 1944 Alexis Carrel, French surgeon and biologist, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1873) Wikipedia
• 1975 Edward Tatum, American geneticist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1909) Wikipedia
• 1977 René Goscinny, French author and illustrator (born 1926) Wikipedia
• 1989 Vladimir Horowitz, Ukrainian-American pianist and composer (born 1903) Wikipedia
• 1992 Jan Oort, Dutch astronomer and academic (born 1900) Wikipedia
• 1997 Isaiah Berlin, Latvian-English historian, author, and academic (born 1909) Wikipedia
• 2005 John Fowles, English novelist (born 1926) Wikipedia
• 2006 Bülent Ecevit, Turkish journalist and politician, 16th Prime Minister of Turkey (born 1925) Wikipedia

Holidays and observances

• Christian feast day: All Jesuit Saints and Blesseds Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Saint Domninus of Grenoble Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Blessed Bernhard Lichtenberg Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Berthild of Chelles Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Galation Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Blessed Gomidas Keumurdjian Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Blessed Guido Maria Conforti Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Blessed Hryhoriy Lakota Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: November 5 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics) Wikipedia
• Bank Transfer Day (United States) Wikipedia
• Colón Day (Panama) Wikipedia
• Guy Fawkes Night (United Kingdom, New Zealand and Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada), and its related observances: West Country Carnival (English West Country) Wikipedia
• Cinco de noviembre (Negros, Philippines) Wikipedia
• Kanakadasa Jayanthi (Karnataka, India) Wikipedia

The events, births, deaths and observances above are from the English Wikipedia article “November 5” and the articles it links to (authors and history), retrieved 2026-10-09 through the Wikimedia “On this day” feed. They are licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0; this selection is shared under the same licence. We picked the 26 events, 22 births and 14 deaths with the widest coverage across Wikipedia's language editions (counted from Wikidata) and sorted them by year; the wording is unchanged apart from removing references to pictures.