📜 This Day in History

August 5

• 25Liu Xiu proclaimed himself the monarch of the Han dynasty as Emperor Guangwu.
• 1600Scottish nobleman John Ruthven, 3rd Earl of Gowrie, was killed during what was most likely a failed attempt to kidnap King James VI.
• 1888Bertha Benz made the first long-distance automobile trip, driving 106 km (66 mi) from Mannheim to Pforzheim, Germany, in a Benz Patent-Motorwagen.
• 1969Police raided a screening of the film Lonesome Cowboys in Atlanta, Georgia, leading to the creation of a Gay Liberation Front in that city.
• 2011NASA launched the Juno probe to Jupiter as part of the New Frontiers program.
• 2015United States Environmental Protection Agency personnel accidentally caused a spillage of 3 million gallons (11 million litres) of mine waste water and tailings trapped inside the Gold King Mine near Silverton, Colorado.

Born on this day

• 1802Niels Henrik Abel, Norwegian mathematician and theorist (died 1829)
• 1850Guy de Maupassant, French short story writer, novelist, and poet (died 1893)
• 1930Neil Armstrong, American pilot, engineer, and astronaut, first man to walk on the Moon (died 2012)
• 1968Marine Le Pen, French lawyer and politician