March 5th

Roman Emperor Julian moves from Antioch with an army of 90,000 to attack the Sassanid Empire, in a campaign that brings about his own death.

Martha Stewart was convicted of obstructing justice and lying to the government about why she'd unloaded her Imclone Systems Inc. stock just before the price plummeted.

Vice President Dick Cheney underwent an angioplasty for a partially blocked artery.

North and South Korean representatives met for the first time in 25 years for peace talks.

Comedian John Belushi was found dead of a drug overdose at age 33.

The home computer ZX81 is launched. The British ZX81 was one of the world's first home computer and was sold over 1.5 million times.

The nuclear non-proliferation treaty went into effect.

Country music singer Patsy Cline died in a plane crash near Camden, Tenn., at age 30.

Alberto Korda takes his famous picture of revolutionary Che Guevara. The iconic photograph, called Guerrillero Heroico, was taken at a memorial service for the victims of the La Coubre explosion.

Soviet dictator Josef Stalin died at age 73 after nearly three decades in power.

Winston Churchill delivered his famous Iron curtain speech, "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an Iron Curtain has descended across the continent.".

The Nazi Party won 44 percent of the vote in German parliamentary elections, enabling it to join with the Nationalists to gain a slender majority in the Reichstag.

The air brake is patented. George Westinghouse is credited with the design of the railway braking system that uses compressed air.

An abortive Fenian uprising against English rule took place in Ireland.

Boston Massacre (Incident on King Street): British soldiers kill 5 men in a crowd throwing snowballs, stones and sticks at them. African American Crispus Attucks 1st to die; later held up as early black martyr. The massacre galvanized anti-British feelings.

Nicolaus Copernicus' revolutionary book De revolutionibus orbium coelestium is banned by the Catholic Church. In the book, Copernicus claimed that the Earth revolves around the sun. The Church maintained Ptolemy's geocentric system. The book is considered a milestone in the history of astronomy.

English King Henry VII hands John Cabot (Giovanni Caboto) a commission to explore for new lands.

Persian scholar Naser Khosrow begins the 7 year Middle Eastern journey which he will later describe in his book Safarnama.