📅 Today in HistoryFebruary 5

Caesar Augustus is granted the title pater patriae by the Roman Senate.

Earthquake in Pompeii, Italy.

Chinese New Year; An Lushan proclaims himself Emperor of China and founds the short-lived state of Yan.

Henry of Navarre abjures Catholicism at Tours and rejoins the Protestant forces in the French Wars of Religion.

A group of early Japanese Christians are killed by the new government of Japan for being seen as a threat to Japanese society.

In Calabria, a sequence of strong earthquakes begins.

Peninsular War: Siege of Cádiz begins.

Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte ascends to the thrones of Sweden and Norway.

The New Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia, one of the largest and oldest museums in the world, opens to the public.

Alexandru Ioan Cuza, Prince of Moldavia, is also elected as prince of Wallachia, joining the two principalities as a personal union called the United Principalities, an autonomous region within the Ottoman Empire, which ushered in the birth of the modern Romanian state.