Behind History For December 5 – Today in History

Behind History For December 5

1931 – Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow was destroyed on orders from Joseph Stalin.

1933 – The Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified.

1934 – Abyssinia Crisis: Italian troops attack Wal Wal in Abyssinia, taking four days to capture the city.

1935 – Mary McLeod Bethune founds the National Council of Negro Women in New York City.

1936 – The Soviet Union adopts a new constitution and the Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic is established as a full Union Republic of the USSR.

1941 – World War II: In the Battle of Moscow, Georgy Zhukov launches a massive Soviet counter-attack against the German army.

1941 – World War II: Great Britain declares war on Finland, Hungary and Romania.

1943 – World War II: Allied air forces begin attacking Germany’s secret weapons bases in Operation Crossbow.

1945 – World War II: Flight 19, a group of TBF Avengers, disappears in the Bermuda Triangle, in one of the most famous aviation mysteries in history.

1952 – Great Smog: A cold fog descends upon London, combining with air pollution and killing at least 12,000 in the weeks and months that follow.

1955 – The American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations merge and form the AFL–CIO.

1955 – E. D. Nixon and Rosa Parks lead the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

1958 – Subscriber Trunk Dialling (STD) is inaugurated in the United Kingdom by Queen Elizabeth II when she speaks to the Lord Provost in a call from Bristol to Edinburgh.

1958 – The Preston By-pass, the UK’s first stretch of motorway, opens to traffic for the first time. (It is now part of the M6 and M55 motorways.)

1964 – Vietnam War: For his heroism in battle earlier in the year, Captain Roger Donlon is awarded the first Medal of Honor of the war.

1964 – Lloyd J. Old discovered the first linkage between the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) and disease—mouse leukemia—opening the way for the recognition of the importance of the MHC in the immune response.

1966 – I Do! I Do! (musical), starring Mary Martin and Robert Preston opens at the 46th Street Theatre, NYC, and closes on June 15, 1968, after 560 performances.

1971 – Battle of Gazipur: Pakistani forces stand defeated as India cedes Gazipur to Bangladesh.

1977 – Egypt breaks diplomatic relations with Syria, Libya, Algeria, Iraq and South Yemen. The move is in retaliation for the Declaration of Tripoli against Egypt.

1983 – Dissolution of the Military Junta in Argentina.

1991 – Leonid Kravchuk is elected the first president of Ukraine.

1995 – Sri Lankan Civil War: Sri Lanka’s government announces the conquest of the Tamil stronghold of Jaffna.

1999 – Helen Clark is sworn in as Prime Minister of New Zealand, the second woman to hold the post and the first to be elected to the role.

2004 – The Civil Partnership Act comes into effect in the United Kingdom, and the first civil partnership is registered there.

2005 – The 6.8 M_w  Lake Tanganyika earthquake shakes the eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (Extreme), killing six people.

2006 – Commodore Frank Bainimarama overthrows the government in Fiji.

2007 – 19 year old Robert A. Hawkins, open fires a WASR-10, to kill 8 people in Westroads Mall shooting of a Von Maur department store at Omaha, Nebraska, before committing suicide, by shooting himself through the head.

2013 – Militants attack a Defense Ministry compound in Sana’a, Yemen, killing at least 56 people and injuring 200 others.

2014 – Exploration Flight Test 1, the first flight test of Orion is launched.

2017 – The International Olympic Committee bans Russia from competing at the 2018 Winter Olympics for doping at the 2014 Winter Olympics.