05 December History
- 1484 - Pope Innocent VIII issues a bill deploring the spread of witchcraft and heresy in Germany.
- 1776 - Phi Beta Kappa is organized as the first American college Greek letter-fraternity, at William and Mary College, Williamsburg, Va.
- 1791 - Composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart dies in Vienna.
- 1861 - In the U.S. Congress, petitions and bills calling for the abolition of slavery are introduced.
- 1862 - Union General Ulysses S. Grant's cavalry receives a setback in an engagement on the Mississippi Central Railroad at Coffeeville, Mississippi.
- 1864 - Confederate General John Bell Hood sends Nathan Bedford Forrest's cavalry and a division of infantry toward Murfreesboro, Tenn.
- 1904 - The Japanese destroy a Russian fleet at Port Arthur in Korea.
- 1909 - George Taylor makes the first manned glider flight in Australia in a glider that he designed himself.
- 1912 - Italy, Austria and Germany renew the Triple Alliance for six years.
- 1916 - David Lloyd George replaces Herbert Asquith as the British prime minister.
- 1921 - The British empire reaches an accord with the Irish revolutionary group the Sinn Fein; Ireland is to become a free state.
- 1933 - The 21st Amendment ends Prohibition in the United States, which had begun 13 years earlier.
- 1934 - Italian and Ethiopian troops clash at the Ualual on disputed the Somali-Ethiopian border.
- 1936 - The New Constitution in the Soviet Union promises universal suffrage, but the Communist Party remains the only legal political party.
- 1937 - The Lindberghs arrive in New York on a holiday visit after a two-year voluntary exile.
- 1945 - Four TBM Avenger bombers disappear approximately 100 miles off the coast of Florida.
- 1950 - Pyongyang in Korea falls to the invading Chinese army.
- 1953 - Italy and Yugoslavia agree to pull troops out of the disputed Trieste border.
- 1955 - A bus boycott begins under the leadership of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., in Montgomery, Alabama.
- 1966 - Comedian and political activist Dick Gregory heads for Hanoi, North Vietnam, despite federal warnings against it.
- 1978 - The Soviet Union signs a 20-year friendship pact with Afghanistan.
05 December Birthdays
- 1782 - Martin Van Buren, 8th president in the United States–and the first born in the United States.
- 1839 - George Armstrong Custer, Union cavalry leader who met his fate at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
- 1890 - Fritz Lang, film director (Metropolis, M).
- 1901 - Walt Disney, animator and creator of an entertainment empire.
- 1931 - James Cleveland, considered the "King of Gospel."
- 1932 - Richard Wayne Penniman [Little Richard], singer.
- 1934 - Joan Didion, essayist and novelist (Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Play it as it Lays).
- 1935 - Calvin Trillin, journalist and writer.