TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – DEC 5
1349 500 Jews of Nuremberg massacred during Black Death riots
1484 Pope Innocent VIII issues a bill deploring the spread of witchcraft and heresy in Germany.
1560 Charles IX succeeded as King of France on the death of Francis II
1776 Phi Beta Kappa is organized as the first American college Greek letter-fraternity, at William and Mary College, Williamsburg, Va.
1782 The first native U.S. president, Martin Van Buren, was born in Kinderhook, NY.
1848 President Polk triggered the Gold Rush of 1848 by confirming that gold had been discovered in California.
1861 In the U.S. Congress, petitions and bills calling for the abolition of slavery are introduced.
1908 At the University of Pittsburgh, numerals were first used on football uniforms worn by college football players.
1909 George Taylor makes the first manned glider flight in Australia in a glider that he designed himself.
1921 The British empire reaches an accord with the Irish revolutionary group the Sinn Fein; Ireland is to become a free state.
1932 German physicist Albert Einstein was granted a visa making it possible for him to travel to the U.S.
1933 The 21st Amendment ends Prohibition in the United States, which had begun 13 years earlier.
1934 The Soviet Union executed 66 people charged with plotting against Joseph Stalin’s government.
1937 The Lindberghs arrive in New York on a holiday visit after a two-year voluntary exile.
1945 The so-called “Lost Squadron” disappeared. The five U.S. Navy Avenger bombers carrying 14 Navy flyers began a training mission at the Ft. Lauderdale Naval Air Station. They were never heard from again.
1955 A bus boycott begins under the leadership of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., in Montgomery, Alabama.
1955 The American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations merged to form the AFL-CIO.
1977 Egypt breaks all relations with Arab countries President Anwar al-Sadat broke all relations with Syria, Libya, Algeria, and South Yemen in response to these countries and the Palestinian Liberation Organization signing the Declaration of Tripoli. The declaration followed Sadat’s visit to Israel.
1978 The Soviet Union signs a 20-year friendship pact with Afghanistan.
1979 Sonia Johnson was formally excommunicated by the Mormon Church due to her outspoken support for the proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution.
1983 In west Beirut, Lebanon, more than a dozen people were killed when a car bomb shattered a nine-story apartment building.
1988 Jim Bakker and former aide Richard Dortch were indicted by a federal grand jury in North Carolina on fraud and conspiracy charges.
1989 Israeli soldiers killed five heavily armed Arab guerrillas who crossed the border from Egypt. The guerrillas were allegedly going to launch a terrorist attack commemorating the anniversary of the Palestinian uprising.
2002 At Sen. Strom Thurmond’s 100th birthday celebration, Senate Republican leader Trent Lott praised Thurmond’s 1948 segregationist presidential bid. Lott subsequently resigned his leadership position.
2004 Hamid Karzai was sworn in as Afghanistan’s first popularly elected president.
2007 A gunman armed with a semi-automatic rifle kills 8 people at Westroads Mall, Omaha, Neb., before taking his own life.
2009 An Italian jury convicts Amanda Knox, an American student, of murdering her former roommate, English student Meredith Kercher, in 2007.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
