February 5
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Featured Event
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Explorer George Bass sets sail for Tahiti in his final voyage
On this day in 1803, George Bass, a British explorer with landmarks such as the Bass Strait to his name, set sail for Tahiti from Sydney, Australia. However, he and the other men aboard the Venus would never be seen again. Bass, who had been trained as a Royal Navy surgeon and had a keen interest in nature and botany, was taking a route that was typically the domain of Spanish merchants. In 1806 Bass was officially declared lost at sea. [Read today’s edition of Today in History > >]
Featured Biography
Featured Biography
Pictorial Parade
American professional baseball player Hank Aaron, born this day in 1934, was one of the sport’s most prolific power hitters, surpassing batting records set by Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, and Stan Musial, among others.
Famous Birthdays
More on February 5
White House Photo
2020
After being impeached by the House of Representatives because of his actions in the Ukraine scandal, Pres. Donald Trump was acquitted in the Senate. He was the third U.S. president to be impeached. [Read what Britannica wrote about the impeachment of a president during Watergate.]
Elsa/Getty Images
2017
In the first overtime game in Super Bowl history, Tom Brady and the New England Patriots overcame a 25-point deficit to defeat the Atlanta Falcons. [How much do you know about the Super Bowl?]
U.S. Department of State
2003
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell appeared before the United Nations Security Council to present evidence (later proven to be inaccurate) that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and posed an immediate danger. The U.S. invaded Iraq just a month later, and Powell later came to regret his statement. [Read more about the Iraq War.]
© Archive Photos
1994
Byron De La Beckwith was convicted of killing civil rights leader Medgar Evers in 1963; Beckwith received a life sentence. [Read about key events in the civil rights movement.]
© Laszlo Szirtesi/Shutterstock.com
1985
Soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo, winner of five Ballon d’Or awards, was born in Funchal, Portugal. [Sort fact from fiction in our soccer quiz.]
CSU Archive— Everett Collection Inc./AGE fotostock
1943
American middleweight boxer Jake LaMotta, the “Bronx Bull,” handed Sugar Ray Robinson his first defeat. [How much do you know about boxing?]
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
1917
Mexico adopted its present constitution, which posits that the Mexican government should take an active, rather than passive, role in day-to-day affairs. [Sort fact from fiction in our quiz about Latin America.]
Mikki Ansin—Archive Photos/Getty Images
1914
Writer William S. Burroughs—whose experimental novels evoke, in deliberately erratic prose, a nightmarish, sometimes wildly humorous world—was born. Burroughs’s prose earned him a following among writers of the Beat movement. [Learn more about the Beat movement]
Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C (2001697069)
1900
The first of two Hay-Pauncefote treaties (named for U.S. Secretary of State John Hay and British Ambassador Lord Pauncefote) was signed between the United States and Great Britain over control of the proposed Panama Canal. [Watch an overview of the Panama Canal.]
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
146 bce
The Third Punic War, the last of three between Rome and Carthage, came to an end, culminating in the final destruction of Carthage, the enslavement of its people, and Roman hegemony over the Mediterranean.