Notable Birthdays for February 5
John Witherspoon (1723-1794) - President of the College of New Jersey who signed the Declaration of Independence.
John Jeffries (1744-1819) - The first person to fly a balloon across the English Channel.
Nancy Hanks Lincoln (1784-1818) - The mother of Abraham Lincoln.
Hiram Maxim (1840-1916) - Inventor of the first automatic machine gun.
Belle Starr (1848-1889) - Female outlaw in the wild west.
Rossetter Gleason Cole (1866-1952) - Composer who wrote Heroes of Freedom.
Joan Whitney Payson (1903-1975) - Co-founder and majority owner of the NY Mets MLB franchise, making her the first woman to own a major league team without inheriting it.
Robert Hofstadter (1915-1990) - Atomic physicist who discovered electron scattering in atomic nuclei.
Claude King (1923-2013) - Country music singer remembered for his song Wolverton Mountain.
James E. Bowman (1923-2011) - Physician who spent his life studying and contributing to the understanding of pathology, hematology, and genetics.
Ruth Fertel (1927-2002) - Founder of Ruth's Chris Steak Houses.
Hank Aaron (1934-2021) - MLB player who hit 755 homerun's during his career.
Henson Cargill (1941-2007) - Country music singer of the socially controversial song Skip a Rope (1968).
Nolan Bushnell (1943-Still Living) - Founder of Atari, Inc. and the Chuck E. Cheese.
Duff McKagan (1964-Still Living) - Bass player for the rock band Guns N' Roses.
Bobby Brown (1969-Still Living) - R&B artist and former member of the band New Edition.
Derek Stephen Prince (1969-Still Living) - Voice actor known for his voice as Elgar in the Power Rangers Turbo and Power Rangers in Space.
Memorable Events for February 5
1644 - The first livestock branding law is passed in CT.
1778 - South Carolina becomes the 2nd state to ratify Articles of Confederation.
1817 - The first gas company is incorporated in MD to provide coal gas for street lights.
1850 - The first adding machine is patented.
1861 - The Kinematoscope is patented in PA.
1870 - The first motion picture is show to audiences in PA.
1901 - J. P. Morgan incorporates U.S. Steel Company.
1917 - Congress passed the Immigration Act of 1917 even thought President Wilson vetoed the bill.
1919 - The United Artists is founded by Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and D.W. Griffith.
1922 - Reader's Digest publishes its first copy.
1958 - A hydrogen bomb (Tybee Bomb) is lost by the U.S. Air Force off the coast of Savannah, GA.
1962 - Black and White parents stage an overnight sit-in after their school board denies transfer requests of nine children to newer school facility in NJ.
1971 - Astronauts in Apollo 14 land on the moon.
1994 - Byron De La Beckwith is convicted of murdering Medgar Evers.
