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Made for the 250thOn this day › August 5
What happened on August 5 in American history
August 5 is the 217th day of the year (the 218th in leap years). Patriot Compass has published 7 stories from August 5 spanning 1620 to 1963. Among them: in 1620, Mayflower sails for America; her companion ship is already taking on water; and in 1861, Congress taxes incomes for the first time to pay for the war.
1620
Mayflower sails for America; her companion ship is already taking on water
Speedwell's leak forces both ships into Dartmouth before they've cleared the English coast.
1861Member story · 1776 Club
Congress taxes incomes for the first time to pay for the war
Three cents on the dollar, only above $800, only because the guns at Sumter left no other way to pay for an army.
1862Member story · 1776 Club
Confederates storm Baton Rouge at daybreak; Union guns on the river hold the line
General Williams falls in the fighting near Magnolia Cemetery as the ironclad Arkansas breaks down four miles upriver.
1864
"Damn the torpedoes": Farragut runs the Mobile Bay minefield
The Tecumseh sinks in three minutes; the fleet presses on anyway.
1882Member story · 1776 Club
Forty-one investors sign; nine trustees now hold the American oil business
The Standard Oil Trust Agreement pools $70 million in securities from forty companies into a single office in Cleveland.
1942Member story · 1776 Club
Queen Wilhelmina, governing in exile, tells Congress the Dutch will not surrender
Wilhelmina tells the House chamber the Dutch will not surrender; the next day she lays flowers at Washington's tomb.
1963
Three powers agree: no more bombs in the sky, underwater, or in space
Underground testing remains legal; a hotline between Washington and Moscow had opened six weeks earlier.
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