Today in History - March 5 | The world leader murder theory doctors kept a secret for decades
Joseph Stalin, the murderous dictator of the Soviet Union, died on March 5, 1953, after suffering a massive stroke.
Stalin had given strict orders not to be woken up after a big night of drinking with his inner circle several days earlier.
A housekeeper did not enter his room until 11pm the following night, to find him unconscious and unresponsive.
Despite this, he was not examined by doctors until 7am the next morning.
Doctors' notes kept secret for decades showed he had suffered symptoms that indicated possible warfarin poisoning.
A large dose of the tasteless and colourless blood thinner may have been slipped into his drink the night he suffered the stroke.
Suspicions have fallen on the USSR's spymaster Lavrenti Beria, the ruthless right-hand-man of Stalin.
Stalin was buried four days after his death in Moscow, where hundreds of thousands of Russians queued to his body lying-in-state.
He was succeeded by Nikita Khrushchev who began moves to denounce Stalin as a tyrant who caused the deaths of millions of people.
Purportedly the first American to hear the news of Stalin's death was a young Air Force radio operator named Johnny Cash.
"I was who they called when the hardest jobs came up. I copied the first news of Stalin's death," Cash said.
Cash would later go on to become perhaps the best country singer of all time.
BOAC Flight 911 disintegrated in midair shortly after takeoff from Tokyo Haneda Airport on March 5, 1966.
The third fatal flight in Tokyo in a month, the plane was hit by severe clear-air turbulence.
In this image the plane is seen spiralling to the ground.
All 124 people on board died.
On board the flight were 75 people on a company trip for Thermo King, including 26 couples.
As a result of the crash, 63 children were orphaned.
By pure chance, a group of booked passengers had cancelled their tickets at the last minute to watch a ninja demonstration.
The five men, producers Albert R Broccoli, and Harry Saltzman, production designer Ken Adam, director Lewis Gilbert and cinematographer Freddie Young, were scouting locations for the James Bond film You Only Live Twice.
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