05 December History


Month:                           Date:     

  • 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.
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  • 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.
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  • 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.
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  • 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.