Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/October 5
- 1864 - Calcutta, India was almost completely destroyed by a cyclone which killed 60,000 people.
- 1877 - After battling U.S. armed forces for more than three months, retreating over 1,000 miles across Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana, and enduring a five-day siege, Chief Joseph and his Nez Perce band finally surrendered.
- 1908 - Prince Ferdinand became Tsar when the autonomous principality of Bulgaria proclaimed independence from the Ottoman Empire.
- 1969 - The first episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus was broadcast on BBC1.
- 1970 - Terrorists of the Front de Libération du Québec kidnapped a British diplomat, sparking the October Crisis in Montréal, Canada.