February 5 in Military History

South Carolina became the first state to ratify the Articles of Confederation, the document that governed the Continental Army and early American military affairs before the Constitution.

Three Union columns launched an offensive southwest of Petersburg to sever Confederate supply lines along the Boydton Plank Road, beginning the last major battle of the Petersburg siege.

The Mexican government received the infamous Zimmermann Telegram from Germany, proposing a military alliance against the United States. British intelligence had intercepted and decoded the message.

The National Naval Medical Center was officially established at Bethesda, Maryland, creating the premier military medical facility that would treat presidents, combat casualties, and advance military medicine for decades.

American forces under General Douglas MacArthur entered Manila, beginning the brutal month-long Battle of Manila that would devastate the Philippine capital and kill over 100,000 Filipino civilians.

Five AJ-1 Savage nuclear-capable bombers of Composite Squadron Five flew from Norfolk, Virginia, to French Morocco, completing the first transatlantic flight by carrier-based aircraft and proving naval aviation's global nuclear strike reach.

A U.S. Air Force B-47 collided with an F-86 fighter during a training exercise and jettisoned a Mark 15 nuclear weapon into the waters off Tybee Island, Georgia. The bomb has never been recovered.

U.S. Marines and South Vietnamese forces launched a major counterattack to retake the Citadel of Hue, occupied by North Vietnamese forces during the Tet Offensive, in what became one of the war's bloodiest urban battles.

The Soviet 40th Army completed its withdrawal from Kabul, Afghanistan's capital, as the phased pullout from the decade-long Soviet-Afghan War entered its final stage before the February 15 deadline.

Secretary of State Colin Powell presented intelligence to the UN Security Council alleging Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, making the case for military intervention. Much of the intelligence later proved to be flawed.