| 5 September 1415 | Bohemia, Holy Roman Empire [political events] | The nobles of Bohemia and Moravia form an association to oppose the church authorities and prevent the execution of the condemned Bohemian religious reformer John Hus. |
| 5 September 1566 | Ottoman Empire, Habsburg Monarchy, Hungary [political events] | Following the death of the Ottoman sultan Suleiman I the Magnificent, he is succeeded by his son, Selim II the Drunkard. |
| 5 September 1566 | Hungary, Ottoman Empire [births and deaths] | Suleiman I (‘the Magnificent’ or ‘the Law Giver’), Ottoman sultan 1520–1566, whose reign saw imperial expansion in Europe and the Middle East, and major achievements in Ottoman administration and culture, dies near Szigetvár, Hungary, shortly after he directed his forces in the capture of the fortress of Szigetvár, Hungary, and having brought the Ottoman Empire to its apogee (71). |
| 5 September 1567 | Holy Roman Empire, Spanish Netherlands [political events] | A fortnight after arriving in Brussels, the Netherlands, at the head of 10,000 Spanish and Italian veterans, the captain general Ferdinand, Duke of Alva (or Alba), establishes the Council of the Troubles, a tribunal controlled by Spanish officials to eradicate Protestant heresy and Netherlands autonomy. Its terrorist methods lead to its nickname the ‘Council of Blood’. |
| 5 September 1569 | Spanish Netherlands, Flanders [births and deaths] | Pieter Breughel the Elder, foremost Flemish painter of the 16th century, noted for landscapes and genre scenes, whose works include The Tower of Babel (1563) and The Seasons (1565), dies in Brussels, Spanish Netherlands (c. 44). |
| 5 September 1634 | Holy Roman Empire, Spain, Sweden [Thirty Years War (1618–48)] | Imperial and Spanish forces, under the command of the two cousins Ferdinand III, King of Hungary, and the cardinal-infante Ferdinand, son of King Philip III of Spain, defeat the Protestant forces of the League of Heilbronn, under Marshal Horn and Duke Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar, at the Battle of Nördlingen. The victory causes the loss of all Swedish conquests in southern Germany and ultimately leads to the dissolution of the League of Heilbronn and the entry of France into the Thirty Years' War. |
| 5 September 1638 | France [births and deaths] | Louis XIV (the ‘Sun King’), King of France 1643–1715, famous for his patronage of the arts and his embodiment of the doctrine of Absolutism, born in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France (–1715). |
| 5 September 1651 | France [Fronde (1648–52)] | Louis XIV of France attains his majority. At the same time, the charges against Louis II de Bourbon, Prince of Condé, are withdrawn. However, Condé leaves Paris, France, and forges an alliance with Spain, while Marshal Henri de Turenne, previously in the service of the Spanish, now refuses to fight the French king and, in March 1652, takes command of his army. |
| 5 September–27 October 1774 | America [American Revolution] | The first Continental Congress of the 13 American colonies meets in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with representatives from each colony except Georgia. It agrees to economic sanctions against Britain and urges the payment of colonial taxes to a ‘government of Massachusetts’ until the Intolerable Acts are repealed. |
| 5 September 1781 | America [American Revolution] | In perhaps the decisive battle of the American Revolution, the French fleet under François, comte de Grasse, defeats off the Virginia Capes the attempt of a British fleet from New York under Admiral Thomas Graves to drive it from Chesapeake Bay. Continued French occupation of the Bay seals the fate of the British forces under Charles, Lord Cornwallis, in Yorktown. |
| 5 September 1905 | Russian Empire, Japan, China [treaties] | The Treaty of Portsmouth (New Hampshire) is mediated by the US president Theodore Roosevelt and ends the Russo-Japanese War. Russia is to cede Port Arthur and the Guangdong Peninsula in China, evacuate Manchuria and half of Sakhalin Island (in the Sea of Okhotsk off the coast of Russia), and recognize Japan's interests in Korea. Japan gives up its demand for an indemnity. |
| 5–10 September 1914 | France [World War I (1914–18)] | In the First Battle of the Marne on the Western Front of World War I, the armies led by General Joseph Joffre halt the German advance on Paris, France. |
| 5 September 1972 | West Germany, Israel [terrorism] | Eight members of the Palestinian Black September guerrilla group attack the Olympic village in Munich, West Germany, killing two Israeli athletes and taking nine hostage; they issue demands for the release of 200 Palestinians from Israeli jails. Five terrorists and all nine hostages are killed when West German police storm the compound the next day. |
| 5–17 September 1978 | USA, Egypt, Israel [political events] | A summit at Camp David, Maryland, USA, between the US president, Jimmy Carter, the Egyptian president, Anwar Sadat, and the Israeli prime minister, Menachem Begin, concludes with a ‘framework’ peace treaty ending 30 years of hostility between Israel and Egypt. |
