October 5

Jonathan Edwards, the New England theologian and preacher of the First Great Awakening, was born at East Windsor, Connecticut.

John Gardner Wilkinson, often called the founder of British Egyptology, was born on this day in 1797.

Ramalinga Swamigal, the Tamil poet-saint who taught compassion and the feeding of the hungry, was born near Chidambaram on this day in 1823.

Ludwig Borchardt, the German Egyptologist who excavated the sculptor Thutmose's workshop at Amarna, was born on this day in 1863.

On 5 October 1989 the Norwegian Nobel Committee named Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, the year's Peace Prize laureate for his advocacy of nonviolence.

Physicist Robert Goddard, born 5 October 1882 in Worcester, Massachusetts, built and launched the first liquid-fuelled rocket in 1926, laying groundwork for modern spaceflight.