Following are some of the major events to have occurred on August 5:
1940 – Latvia was absorbed into the Soviet Union as the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic.
1962 – American film actress Marilyn Monroe died in Los Angeles at the age of 36.
1984 – British actor Richard Burton died at the age of 58.
1995 – The United States and Vietnam declared an end to decades of enmity, formally established diplomatic ties and pledged a new era of cooperation.
1995 – Croatian government forces seized the rebel Serb “capital” of Knin in a lightning assault designed to win back the breakaway region of Krajina after 4 years.
1998 – Todor Zhivkov, Bulgarian communist ruler from 1954-89, died aged 86.
2003 – Bomb blast at Marriott hotel in Jakarta.
2007 – South Asia’s catastrophic flood’s death toll climbed to 330 amid fears of epidemics and criticism of relief efforts.
2012 – China’s Zhou Lulu sets new world record and Olympic record in the clean and jerk weightlifting event.
2012 – Fatal shooting at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin.
2013 – World’s first lab-grown beef, the in-vitro burger, is launched in London.
