NOW & THEN
5 DECEMBER
771: Charlemagne became king of the Franks following the death of his brother Carloman.
1456: An earthquake in central Italy caused 35,000 deaths. 1492: Christopher Columbus discovered the island of Hispaniola.
11717: The pirate Blackbeard ransacked the merchant ship “Margaret” and took her captain, Henry Bostock, prisoner. Upon his release, Bostock provided the first record of Blackbeard’s appearance.
1766: James Christie, founder of the auctioneers, held his first sale in London.
1848: US president James Polk confirmed that gold had been discovered in California, thereby triggering the gold rush of 1849. 1893: The world’s first electric car was built in Toronto. It could go 15 miles between charges. 1905: Liberal Party leader Henry Campbell-bannerman became prime minister.
1922: Irish Free State came into existence as the Irish Constitution Bill became law.
1933: Prohibition in America was repealed after 12 years by the 21st amendment.
1934: Soviet Union executed 66 people charged with plotting against the Stalin government. 1941: Britain declared war on Hungary, Romania and Finland after their refusal to withdraw from the war against the Soviet Union.
1945: Five US bombers took off from Fort Lauderdale on a training flight. No trace of them, or of an aircraft sent to look for them, or their 27 crew members, was ever found. The area where they were lost became known as the Bermuda Triangle.
1947: Joe Louis defeated Jersey Joe Walcott on a split decision in New York to retain his world heavyweight boxing title.
1955: African Americans began the bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, to protest over segregated seating, four days after Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man, for which she was arrested and fined. The boycott lasted for 381 days and, ultimately, the US Supreme Court ordered Montgomery to integrate its buses. 1956: Miss Rose Heilbron, QC, was appointed Recorder of Burnley to become Britain’s first woman judge.
1956: British and French forces began withdrawal from Egypt in the Suez War.
1958: The Queen dialled Edinburgh’s lord provost from Bristol to inaugurate the first direct dialled trunk call (STD).
1958: Britain’s first stretch of motorway, the eight-mile Preston bypass section of the M6, was opened.
1962: United States and Soviet Union agreed to co-operate in peaceful uses of outer space. 1990: Ministry of Defence agreed to publish secret submarine routes to protect Clyde fishermen.
1994: A 1904 Steiff teddy bear fetched a world record price of £110,000 at Christie’s in London. 2005: The Civil Partnerships Acts, allowing same-sex weddings in Britain, came into force. 2008: Former American Football player and actor OJ Simpson was sentenced to a maximum of 33 years imprisonment for armed robbery and kidnapping.
BIRTHDAYS
Amy Acker, American actress, 46; Morgan Brittany, American actress, 71; José Carreras, Spanish Catalan operatic tenor, 76; Christopher Guard, British actor, 69; John Home Robertson, MP 1983-2001, 74; Hanif Kureishi CBE, British writer, 68; Frankie Muniz, American actor, 37; ; Keith Robertson, Scottish rugby player and coach, 68; Adam Thorpe, French-born British poet, playwright and novelist, 66; Lanny Wadkins, American golfer, 73; Paula Patton, actress, 47; Ross Barkley, footballer, 29; Eddie “the Eagle” Edwards, skier, 59; James Lee Burke, author, 86; Adrian Street, wrestler, 82.
ANNIVERSARIES
Births: 1839 George Custer, American cavalry commander (died in battle at Little Big Horn); 1890 Fritz Lang, film director; 1901 Walt Disney, cartoonist, film producer (creator of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck); 1905 Otto Preminger, film director. Deaths: 1770 James Stirling, Scottish mathematician; 1791 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Austrian composer; 1926 Claude Monet, French painter; 2013 Nelson Mandela, president of South Africa 1994-99; 2015 William Mcilvanney, Scottish novelist, short story writer, and poet.