February 5

February 5 in history:

• 1897, the Indiana House of Representatives passed, 67-0, a measure redefining the method for determining the area of a circle, which included altering the value of pi. (The bill died in the Indiana Senate.)

• 1900, the United States and the United Kingdom sign treaty for Panama Canal

• 1919, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and D.W. Griffith launch United Artists

• 1924, the Royal Greenwich Observatory begin broadcasting the hourly time signals known as the Greenwich Time Signal or the "BBC pips"

• 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposes a plan to enlarge the Supreme Court of the United States

• 1958, a hydrogen bomb known as the Tybee Bomb is lost by the US Air Force off the coast of Savannah, Georgia, never to be recovered

• 1973, services were held at Arlington National Cemetery for Army Lt. Col. William B. Nolde, the last American combat casualty before the Vietnam cease-fire

• 1974, John Murtha becomes the first Vietnam War veteran elected to the Congress of the United States

• 1988, Manuel Noriega is indicted on drug smuggling and money laundering charges

• 1989, in an important move signaling the close of the nearly decade-long Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan, the last Russian troops withdraw from the capital city of Kabul. Less than two weeks later, all Soviet troops departed Afghanistan entirely, ending what many observers referred to as Russia's "Vietnam"

• 1994, Byron De La Beckwith is convicted of the 1963 murder of civil rights leader Medgar Evers

• 1997, the so-called Big Three banks in Switzerland announce the creation of a $71 million fund to aid Holocaust survivors and their families.

• 1997, Investment bank Morgan Stanley announced a $10 billion merger with Dean Witter

• 2002, a federal grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia., indicted John Walker Lindh on 10 charges, alleging he was trained by Osama bin Laden's network and then conspired with the Taliban to kill Americans. (Lindh later pleaded guilty to lesser offenses and was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison.)

• 2002, Congressional committees decided to subpoena former Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay to appear to tell what he knew of Enron's complex financial dealings. (Lay did appear, but refused to testify, citing his Fifth Amendment rights.)