Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/May 5
On May 5: Cinco de mayo celebrated in Mexico and Southwestern United States. It is also Liberation Day in Denmark, Ethiopia, and The Netherlands.
- 1864 - The Battle of the Wilderness began in the American Civil War.
- 1945 - A bomb carried by a Japanese fire balloon exploded in Oregon, killing six.
- 1949 - The Council of Europe was formed.
- 1961 - Mercury 3 pilot Alan Shepard became the first American to travel into space.
- 1992 - The 27th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified over 200 years after it was proposed.