1807
Aug 5, Jeanne Baret (b.1740), botanist, died in France. She had joined the (1766-1769) expedition of Louis Antoine de Bougainville, disguised as a man, and enlisting as valet and assistant to the expedition's naturalist, Philibert Commerson, shortly before Bougainville's ships sailed on a voyage to circumnavigate the globe. In 2013 Glynis Ridley authored “The Discovery of Jeanne Baret: A Story of Science, the High Seas, and the First Woman to Circumnavigate the Globe."

1892
Aug 5, Harriet Tubman received a pension from Congress for her work as a nurse, spy and scout during the Civil War.

1924
Aug 5, The comic strip "Little Orphan Annie" by Harold Gray (d.1968) made its debut in the NY Daily News. Daddy Warbucks was her millionaire guardian. Leonard Starr took over the strip in 1979. Her image was updated in 2000 by cartoonist Andrew Pepoy. [see Oct 5]

1955
Aug 5, Carmen Miranda (42), singer, actress (Down Argentine Way), died.

1962
Aug 5, Actress Marilyn Monroe (36) was found dead in her Los Angeles home. Her death was ruled a "probable suicide" from an overdose of sleeping pills. Movie actress, model, singer, Judaism convert, RN: Norma Jean Mortenson Baker; Joe DiMaggio's, then Arthur Miller's ex-wife. Her films included "Some Like It Hot." In 1999 Barbara Leaming authored the biography "Marilyn Monroe." In 1969 Fred Lawrence Guiles (d.2000 at 79) authored "Norma Jean: The Life of Marilyn Monroe."

2002
Aug 5, The Vatican excommunicated 7 women who claimed to have been recently ordained as priests, because they had attacked the fundamental structure of the Catholic Church. The 7 women, from Germany, Austria and the United States, had defied an earlier Vatican warning to repent over their participation in a June 29 ceremony which they claimed made them priests.

2008
Aug 5, Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani woman once identified as a possible al-Qaida associate, was extradited from Afghanistan and arraigned in New York on charges that she tried to kill US agents and military officers. Siddiqui was educated at Brandeis and MIT and fled to Pakistan after 9/11 because of anti-Muslim sentiment. She and her children dropped out of sight in March 2003, after 9/11 mastermind Khalid sheikh Mohammed mentioned her name during an interrogation. She was arrested by Afghan police on July 17, who found recipes for explosives and descriptions of New York landmarks in her handbag. Siddiqui is the wife of Ammar al-Baluchi, a nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was believed to be the chief planner of the Sep 11, 2001, attacks.