February 5 is the 36th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar; 329 days remain until the end of the year (330 in leap years).
2 BC – Caesar Augustus is granted the title pater patriae by the Roman Senate.
62 – Earthquake in Pompeii, Italy.
1576 – Henry of Navarre renounces Catholicism at Tours and rejoins the Protestant forces in the French Wars of Religion.
1597 – A group of early Japanese Christians are killed by the new government of Japan for being seen as a threat to Japanese society 1810 – Peninsular War: Siege of Cádiz begins.
1818 – Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte ascends to the thrones of Sweden and Norway.
1852 – The New Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia, one of the largest and oldest museums in the world, opens to the public.
1859 – Alexandru Ioan Cuza, Prince of Moldavia, is also elected as prince of Wallachia, joining the two principalities as a personal union called the United Principalities, an autonomous region within the Ottoman Empire, which ushered in the birth of the modern Romanian state.
1869 – The largest alluvial gold nugget in history, called the 'Welcome Stranger', is found in Moliagul, Victoria, Australia.
1885 – King Leopold II of Belgium establishes the Congo as a personal possession.
1901 – J. P. Morgan incorporates U.S. Steel in the state of New Jersey, although the company would not start doing business until February 25 and the assets of Andrew Carnegie's Carnegie Steel Company, Elbert H. Gary's Federal Steel Company, and William Henry Moore's National Steel Company were not acquired until April 1.
1905 – In Mexico, the General Hospital of Mexico is inaugurated, started with four basic specialties.
1907 – Belgian chemist Leo Baekeland announces the creation of Bakelite, the world's first synthetic plastic.
1917 – The current constitution of Mexico is adopted, establishing a federal republic with powers separated into independent executive, legislative, and judicial branches.
1917 – The Congress of the United States passes the Immigration Act of 1917 over President Woodrow Wilson's veto.
1918 – Stephen W. Thompson shoots down a German airplane; this is the first aerial victory by the U.S. military.
1918 – SS Tuscania is torpedoed off the coast of Ireland; it is the first ship carrying American troops to Europe to be torpedoed and sunk.
1919 – Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and D. W. Griffith launch United Artists.
1924 – The Royal Greenwich Observatory begins broadcasting the hourly time signals known as the Greenwich Time Signal.
1939 – Generalísimo Francisco Franco becomes the 68th 'Caudillo de España', or Leader of Spain.
1941 – World War II: Allied forces begin the
Battle of Keren to capture Keren, Eritrea.
1945 – World War II: General Douglas MacArthur returns to Manila.
1958 – Gamal Abdel Nasser is nominated to be the first president of the United Arab Republic.
1958 – A hydrogen bomb known as the Tybee Bomb is lost by the US Air Force off the coast of Savannah, Georgia, never to be recovered.
1962 – French President Charles de Gaulle calls for Algeria to be granted independence.
1963 – The European Court of Justice's ruling in Van Gend en Loos v Nederlandse Administratie der Belastingen establishes the principle of direct effect, one of the most important, if not the most important, decisions in the development of European Union law.
1971 – Astronauts land on the Moon in the Apollo 14 mission.
1975 – Riots break out in Lima, Peru after the police forces go on strike the day before. The uprising is bloodily suppressed by the military.