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HISTORY & TIMELINE
5 July

A journey through
5 July in history

The story of 5 July runs from the election of a hermit pope in 1294 to the discovery of a buried treasure of Anglo-Saxon gold in a Staffordshire field in 2009. In between come the finishing of Newton’s Principia, a declaration of independence in Caracas, the French capture of Algiers, a searching speech in Rochester, a daring swimsuit in Paris, the first day of the NHS, the first American battle of the Korean War, a first ascent in the Karakoram, the birth of an island nation in the Atlantic and a Wimbledon final that made history.

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II
THE MIDDLE AGES

Medieval History

Kingdoms, conflict, faith, power and the changing medieval world.

1294
Celestine V in a 14th-century fresco by Niccolò di Tommaso in the Castel Nuovo, NaplesCelestine V in a 14th-century fresco by Niccolò di Tommaso in the Castel Nuovo, NaplesImage: Niccolò di Tommaso · Public domain
world · Europe

A hermit is elected Pope Celestine V

After Pope Nicholas IV died in 1292, the cardinals meeting at Perugia deadlocked for more than two years. The hermit Pietro da Morrone, about 80 years old, wrote to rebuke them for the delay, and on 5 July 1294 they chose him as pope. He took the name Celestine V, but he had no gift for government, and in December he resigned, one of the very few popes ever to do so.

Source: Britannica: St Celestine V ↗
III
A CHANGING WORLD

Early Modern Era

Exploration, political change, scientific development and expanding global connections.

1687
Newton's own copy of the Principia, its pages crowded with his handwritten corrections and notesNewton’s own copy of the Principia, its pages crowded with his handwritten corrections and notesImage: Billthom · CC BY-SA 4.0
science · Europe

Newton’s Principia comes off the press

In 1684 the astronomer Edmond Halley visited Isaac Newton in Cambridge to ask what path a planet would follow if the Sun pulled on it with a force that weakened with the square of the distance. Newton replied that he had already worked it out: an ellipse. Encouraged by Halley, he spent the next two and a half years turning that answer into a vast book, the Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, or Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. Halley took charge of the printing in London and paid for it himself. On 5 July 1687, by the calendar then used in England, he wrote to tell Newton that he had at last brought the book to an end. Written in Latin, the Principia set out Newton’s three laws of motion and his law of universal gravitation, showing that the same force explained a falling apple, the tides, the orbits of the planets and the paths of comets. It became the foundation of physics for more than two centuries.

Source: Cambridge Digital Library: Newton Papers, Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica ↗
IV
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

The 1800s

Industry, empire, invention, reform and a century of enormous transformation.

1811
The signing of Venezuela's Act of Independence, as imagined by the painter Martín Tovar y Tovar later in the 19th centuryThe signing of Venezuela’s Act of Independence, as imagined by the painter Martín Tovar y Tovar later in the 19th centuryImage: Martin Tovar y Tovar · Public domain
politics · Americas

Venezuela declares its independence from Spain

In 1808 Napoleon’s armies occupied Spain and forced its king from the throne, and across Spanish America local leaders began to ask who now had the right to govern them. In April 1810 the town council of Caracas pushed aside the Spanish captain-general and set up a junta of its own, still nominally loyal to the captive king. Early in 1811 a congress of deputies from the Venezuelan provinces gathered in Caracas to decide how far to go. The young Simón Bolívar, not himself a deputy, urged a clean break, warning that hesitation would be fatal. After long debate the congress declared on 5 July 1811 that Venezuela was a free and independent state. It was the first such declaration in Spanish South America. The new republic, led in the field by Francisco de Miranda, collapsed within a year, and the war that followed lasted until Bolívar’s victory at Carabobo in 1821. Venezuela still celebrates 5 July as its Independence Day.

Source: Britannica: Venezuela, the independence movement ↗
1830
French warships bombarding the defences of Algiers in 1830, painted by Antoine Léon Morel-FatioFrench warships bombarding the defences of Algiers in 1830, painted by Antoine Léon Morel-FatioImage: Antoine Léon Morel-Fatio · Public domain
world · Africa

France captures Algiers

A long quarrel over French debts came to a head in 1827, when Hussein, the Ottoman dey of Algiers, struck the French consul with a fly whisk. In June 1830 a French expedition under the Comte de Bourmont landed west of the city. On 5 July 1830 the dey surrendered Algiers and soon left for exile in Italy. It was the start of 132 years of French rule in Algeria.

Source: BnF Gallica: Relation de la prise d’Alger par l’armée française, le 5 juillet 1830 ↗
1852
A handwritten notice for the meeting at Corinthian Hall on Monday 5 July 1852, promising an oration by Frederick Douglass, 'once a slave'A handwritten notice for the meeting at Corinthian Hall on Monday 5 July 1852, promising an oration by Frederick Douglass, ‘once a slave’Image: Frederick Douglass · Public domain
politics · Americas

Frederick Douglass asks what the Fourth of July means to the enslaved

Frederick Douglass was born into slavery in Maryland and escaped to the North in 1838. By the 1850s he was the most famous Black abolitionist in America, a gifted speaker who ran his own newspaper in Rochester, New York. In 1852 the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Sewing Society invited him to speak at the town’s Independence Day celebrations. He agreed, but asked to speak on 5 July, as many Black Americans in New York preferred to mark the day apart from the white celebrations. On 5 July 1852 some 600 people filled Corinthian Hall to hear him. Douglass praised the founders of the republic, then turned on his listeners: while about three and a half million people were held in slavery, the nation’s festival of liberty was a sham. “This Fourth of July is yours, not mine,” he told them. The speech was printed in his newspaper a few days later and sold as a pamphlet. It is now counted among the greatest speeches in American history, and it is often read aloud around the Fourth of July.

Source: National Park Service: What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? ↗
V
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

The 1900s

War and peace, technological leaps, social change, politics, sport and popular culture.

1946
The Piscine Molitor in Paris, where the bikini was first shown, photographed while it stood empty and closed, before its restorationThe Piscine Molitor in Paris, where the bikini was first shown, photographed while it stood empty and closed, before its restorationImage: Ros_K Photographie (previously Getfunky Paris) · CC BY 2.0
culture · Europe

The bikini makes its debut in Paris

Two-piece bathing costumes were not new in 1946, but they usually covered the navel. In the summer of 1946 the French designer Louis Réard cut one far smaller than anything seen before, and named it after Bikini Atoll in the Pacific, where the United States had exploded an atomic bomb in a test on 1 July, hoping it would cause just as big a stir. Réard showed it at a poolside beauty contest at the Piscine Molitor in Paris on 5 July 1946. No regular model would wear it, so he hired Micheline Bernardini, a dancer from the Casino de Paris. The photographs went around the world, and she is said to have received some 50,000 fan letters. For years the bikini was frowned on or banned on many beaches, but by the 1960s it had become one of the most familiar garments of the summer.

Source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art: The Bikini ↗
1948
Aneurin Bevan, Minister of Health, meets a young patient at Park Hospital, Davyhulme, near Manchester, on the first day of the NHS, 5 July 1948Aneurin Bevan, Minister of Health, meets a young patient at Park Hospital, Davyhulme, near Manchester, on the first day of the NHS, 5 July 1948Image: University of Liverpool Faculty of Health & Life Sciences · CC BY-SA 2.0
world · Europe

Britain’s National Health Service opens its doors

Before the Second World War, health care in Britain was a patchwork. Many workers were covered by a national insurance scheme, but their wives and children often were not, and hospitals were run by charities or local councils, some of them struggling to survive. The wartime Beveridge report of 1942 called for a health service for everyone, and after Labour won the 1945 election the new Minister of Health, Aneurin Bevan, drove the National Health Service Act through Parliament in 1946, overcoming fierce opposition from many doctors. The service began on 5 July 1948. That day Bevan visited Park Hospital at Davyhulme, near Manchester, now Trafford General Hospital, which is remembered as the first NHS hospital. From then on hospital treatment, family doctors, dentists, opticians and medicines were available to everyone, paid for from taxation and free when they were used. Separate services were set up for England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The NHS quickly became one of Britain’s most valued institutions.

Source: The National Archives: The foundation of the NHS ↗
1950
An American bazooka team at Osan in July 1950, photographed by Sergeant Charles TurnbullAn American bazooka team at Osan in July 1950, photographed by Sergeant Charles TurnbullImage: Turnbull, Sgt. Charles R., photo coutesy of the en:US Army Center for Military History · Public domain
world · Asia

American troops fight their first battle of the Korean War at Osan

Ten days after North Korea invaded the South, some 540 American soldiers flown in from Japan, known as Task Force Smith after their commander, Lieutenant Colonel Charles B. Smith, dug in north of Osan. On 5 July 1950 they met a North Korean division backed by more than 30 tanks. Without armour or air support they were overrun after about six hours, but they delayed the advance and bought time for reinforcements to arrive.

Source: US Army: Task Force Smith 75th anniversary ceremony ↗
1958
The snow-covered summit of Gasherbrum I, also known as Hidden Peak, in the KarakoramThe snow-covered summit of Gasherbrum I, also known as Hidden Peak, in the KarakoramImage: Dr. Olaf Rieck · CC BY-SA 3.0
sport · Asia

Climbers reach the top of Gasherbrum I for the first time

Gasherbrum I, also called Hidden Peak, rises to about 8,070 metres in the Karakoram on the border of Pakistan and China, one of the world’s 14 mountains higher than 8,000 metres. A small American expedition organised by Nick Clinch, with two Pakistani army officers, set out to climb it in 1958. On 5 July Pete Schoening and Andy Kauffman stood on the summit. It is the only first ascent of an 8,000-metre peak made by Americans.

Source: American Alpine Journal: Ascent of Hidden Peak ↗
1975
Aristides Pereira, who led the independence movement and became Cape Verde's first president, photographed in the 1980sAristides Pereira, who led the independence movement and became Cape Verde’s first president, photographed in the 1980sImage: SSGT Maria Briestline · Public domain
politics · Africa

Cape Verde becomes an independent nation

The Cape Verde islands, off the coast of West Africa, were uninhabited when Portuguese navigators found them in the 15th century. They became a Portuguese colony and a way station for the Atlantic slave trade, and their people, of mixed African and European descent, often suffered droughts and famine. In 1956 Amílcar Cabral founded the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), which from 1963 fought an armed struggle against Portugal on the African mainland in Guinea-Bissau. Cabral was murdered in 1973, but in April 1974 a revolution in Lisbon brought to power a government ready to give up the colonies. On 30 June 1975 Cape Verdeans elected a national assembly, and on 5 July 1975 it received independence from Portugal. Aristides Pereira, the PAIGC’s leader, became the first president and Pedro Pires the prime minister. Plans for union with Guinea-Bissau were abandoned after 1980, and in 1991 Cape Verde held its first multiparty elections. It has since been one of Africa’s most stable democracies.

Source: Britannica: Cabo Verde, struggle for independence ↗
1975
Arthur Ashe in action in the 1970sArthur Ashe in action in the 1970sImage: Rob Bogaerts for Anefo · CC BY-SA 3.0 nl
sport · Europe

Arthur Ashe wins Wimbledon

Arthur Ashe grew up in segregated Richmond, Virginia, where as a boy he was barred from some public courts because he was Black. He went on to become the first Black man to win the US Open, in 1968, and a leading voice against apartheid in South Africa. By the summer of 1975, though, he was nearly 32, and few expected him to beat the defending Wimbledon champion, his fellow American Jimmy Connors, in the final. Ashe had lost to him in all three of their earlier meetings. On 5 July 1975 Ashe took the power out of Connors’s game by constantly changing pace and spin, sending him low, soft balls and wide angles. He won the first two sets 6-1, 6-1, lost the third 5-7 and took the fourth 6-4 for one of the great upsets of the Open era. Ashe became the first Black man to win the Wimbledon singles title, and he is still the only one.

Source: Wimbledon: Arthur Ashe, recalling a momentous title victory ↗
VI
2000 TO TODAY

Modern Day

The events of recent decades that have already become part of the historical record.

2009
A gold sword fitting set with garnets, one of the pieces found in the Staffordshire HoardA gold sword fitting set with garnets, one of the pieces found in the Staffordshire HoardImage: joncallas · CC BY 2.0
science · Europe

A metal detectorist finds the Staffordshire Hoard

On 5 July 2009 the metal detectorist Terry Herbert began turning up gold objects in a farmer’s field near Hammerwich, close to Lichfield in Staffordshire. Archaeologists went on to recover almost 4,000 objects and fragments, mostly fittings stripped from swords and other war gear, buried in the mid-7th century. It is the largest collection of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver metalwork ever found.

Source: Birmingham Museums: The discovery of the Staffordshire Hoard ↗
RESEARCH

Sources & Further Reading

Selected authoritative references supporting the events on this page.

WHY THESE MOMENTS?

Significance before volume

This page is not the longest possible list of events. It is a chronological journey through 5 July, where each entry is chosen for historical significance, human interest and reliability.

Facts are checked against authoritative museums, archives, universities and reference works. Where sources disagree, the page says so.

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Discover the lighter side of the date with famous birthdays, culture, firsts and lives remembered.

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