Today in History, March 5th
On March 5, 1770, British soldiers killed five colonists in the Boston Massacre. Plus Churchill's Iron Curtain speech and Stalin's death.
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March 5 is best known for the Boston Massacre of 1770, when British soldiers fired into a crowd and killed five colonists. The date also saw Winston Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” speech in 1946 and the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953.
The big story: The Boston Massacre (1770)
British troops had been posted in Boston since 1768 to back up a string of unpopular taxes, and the town never warmed to them. On the cold, snowy night of March 5, 1770, a crowd gathered around the soldiers guarding the Customs House on King Street, jeering at them and hurling snowballs and other objects. Captain Thomas Preston brought more men out with bayonets fixed. When Private Hugh Montgomery was knocked down, he fired, and other soldiers followed. Five colonists were killed or mortally wounded, among them Crispus Attucks, a man of African descent who became the best-remembered victim. Patriot leaders quickly turned the night into propaganda, helped by Paul Revere’s engraving, which showed the redcoats firing in a neat line like a firing squad. Yet the soldiers got a real defense. John Adams and Josiah Quincy took their case, and at trial in late 1770 most were acquitted. Two were convicted of manslaughter and branded on the thumb.
More events on March 5
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1798 | French revolutionary troops occupied Bern, bringing down the centuries-old Swiss Confederation of the Thirteen Cantons. |
| 1868 | The U.S. Senate opened the impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson, the first such trial of a president, over his alleged violation of the Tenure of Office Act. |
| 1946 | Winston Churchill warned in a speech at Fulton, Missouri, that an “iron curtain” had descended across Europe, an early landmark of the Cold War. |
| 1953 | Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin died in Moscow at age 74 after nearly three decades in power. |
| 1963 | Arthur “Spud” Melin, a co-founder of Wham-O, received the patent for the Hula Hoop. |
| 1963 | Country star Patsy Cline, singer of “Crazy” and “I Fall to Pieces,” died at age 30 in a plane crash. |
| 1966 | Marvin Miller, a steelworkers’ union negotiator, was elected the first full-time executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association. |
| 1979 | Voyager 1 flew past Jupiter’s moon Io and spotted active volcanoes erupting on its surface. |
| 2013 | Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez died in Caracas at age 58. |
Born on March 5
- 1512: Gerardus Mercator, Flemish mapmaker whose map projection became a standard tool for navigation.
- 1871: Rosa Luxemburg, Polish-born socialist leader and co-founder of Germany’s Spartacus League.
- 1898: Zhou Enlai, longtime premier of the People’s Republic of China.
Sources
- The Boston Massacre, History.com
- What Happened on March 5, History.com
- March 5: Events and Birthdays, Britannica
- Hugo Chávez, Britannica
- Gerardus Mercator, Britannica
- Rosa Luxemburg, Britannica
- Zhou Enlai, Britannica
