March 5

• March 5, 1198
  The Teutonic Knights, religious Catholic order, are established as a military order in a ceremony at Acre in Palestine
• March 5, 1496
  English King Henry VII hires John Cabot, an Italian navigator, to explore new lands
• March 5, 1616
  The Catholic Church's Congregation of the Index ban Catholics from reading "On the Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres" by Nicholas Copernicus
• March 5, 1766
  Spanish official Antonio de Ulloa arrives in New Orleans to take possession of the Louisiana Territory from the French
• March 5, 1770
  British troops taunted by a crowd of colonists fire on an unruly mob in Boston and kill five citizens in what came to be known as the Boston Massacre
• March 5, 1824
  The British Empire annexes Burma, also known as Myanmar, with start of Anglo-Burmese Wars
• March 5, 1868
  Stapler patents in England by C.H.Gould
• March 5, 1931
  Mohandas Gandhi and British viceroy of India Lord Irwin sign pact, in which the British Government agree to free all political prisoners, in return for the suspension of the civil disobedience movement
• March 5, 1946
  Winston Churchill's "Iron Curtain" speech occurs in Fulton, Missouri, marking the beginning of Cold War
• March 5, 1953
  Joseph Stalin, a Soviet leader responsible for 9 to 15 million deaths from executions, Gulag camps, ethnic deportations, and famines, dies at age 73, which marks start of a period of moderate social and economic liberalization
• March 5, 1970
  The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, an international treaty whose objective is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology, goes into effect
• March 5, 1972
  The Godfather, an American crime film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, is released in New York City
• March 5, 1998
  NASA announces that the Clementine probe orbiting the Moon has found enough water in polar craters to support a human colony and rocket fueling station
• March 5, 2013
  Hugo Chávez, President of Venezuela, dies
• March 5, 2013
  Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina is elected the 266th pope, whereupon he takes the name Francis and becomes the first pope from the Southern Hemisphere after resignation of Benedict XVI, who becomes the first to do so since Gregory XII in 1415