From Historynet: Today in History March 5

1624          Class-based legislation is passed in the colony of Virginia, exempting the upper class from punishment by whipping.

1766          Antonio de Ulloa , the first Spanish governor of Louisiana, arrives in New Orleans.

1793          Austrian troops crush the French and recapture Liege.

1821          James Monroe  becomes the first president to be inaugurated on March 5, only because the 4th was a Sunday.

1905          Russians begin to retreat from Mukden in Manchuria, China.

1912          The Italians become the first to use dirigibles for military purposes, using them for reconnaissance flights behind Turkish lines west of Tripoli.

1918          The Soviets move the capital of Russia from Petrograd to Moscow.

1928          Hitler's  National Socialists win the majority vote in Bavaria.

1933          Hitler  and Nationalist allies win the Reichstag majority. It will be the last free election in Germany until after World War II.

1933          Newly inaugurated 

President Franklin D. Roosevelt  halts the trading of gold and declares a bank holiday.

1943          In desperation due to war losses, fifteen and sixteen year olds are called up for military service in the German army.

1946          In Fulton, Missouri, Winston Churchill  tells a crowd that "an iron curtain has descended on the Continent [of Europe]."

1956          The U.S. Supreme Court affirms the ban on segregation in public schools in Brown vs. Board of Education.

1969          Gustav Heinemann  is elected West German President.

1976          Britain gives up on the Ulster talks and decides to retain rule in Northern Ireland indefinitely.

1984          The U.S. Supreme Court rules that cities have the right to display the Nativity scene as part of their Christmas display.