February 5 is:
World Nutella Day
National Frozen Yogurt Day
Roger Williams Day, observed by American Baptists to celebrate the arrival of their founder, Roger Williams, to the North American continent in 1631. He founded Providence Plantations, which became the Colony of Rhode Island.
1778 – South Carolina became the second state to ratify the Articles of Confederation.
Birthday of Sir Robert Peel (February 5, 1788), English prime minister. The British police became known as “bobbies” as a result of Peel’s interest in public safety.
Publication of Federalist Paper #50: Method of Guarding Against the Encroachments of Any One Department of Government by Appealing to the People Through a Convention written by James Madison in 1788. This article continues the subject under discussion in Federalist Paper #49. The author recalls an attempt by Pennsylvania to examine “whether the constitution had been violated, and whether the legislative and executive departments had encroached upon each other.” The inquiry failed because political considerations are inevitable in these endeavors.
The Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia, one of the largest and oldest museums in the world, opened to the public on February 5, 1852.
The Congress of the United States (1917) passed the Immigration Act of 1917 over President Woodrow Wilson’s veto. Also known as the Asiatic Barred Zone Act, it forbade immigration from nearly all of south and southeast Asia.
Astronauts landed on the moon in the Apollo 14 mission in 1971. Commander Alan Shepard and Lunar Module Pilot Edgar Mitchell landed on the surface of the moon while Command Module Pilot Stuart Roosa remained in lunar orbit aboard the Command/Service Module Kitty Hawk.