Portal:Australia/Anniversaries/May/May 5
- 1865 – Bushranger Ben Hall is ambushed and shot dead by police near Goobang Creek, New South Wales.
- 1882 – Geologist and explorer Sir Douglas Mawson is born in Shipley, England.
- 1906 – The first electric trams begin operations in Melbourne, with the opening of a service from St Kilda to Brighton.
- 1947 – Sixteen people are killed and 38 injured when a crowded picnic train derails (wreckage pictured) near Camp Mountain, Queensland.
- 1998 – Four Royal Australian Navy sailors die from carbon monoxide poisoning after a fire aboard HMAS Westralia.