TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS SUNDAY, DEC. 5, the 339th day of 2021. There are 26 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY:
On this date in 1933, national Prohibition came to an end as Utah became the 36th state to ratify the 21st Amendment to the Constitution, repealing the 18th Amendment.
In 1791, composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died in Vienna, Austria, at age 35.
In 1792, George Washington was reelected president; John Adams was reelected vice president.
In 1848, President James K. Polk triggered the Gold Rush of ’49 by confirming that gold had been discovered in California.
In 1932, German physicist Albert Einstein was granted a visa, making it possible for him to travel to the United States.
In 1952, the Great Smog of London descended on the British capital; the unusually thick fog, which contained toxic pollutants, lasted five days and was blamed for thousands of deaths.
In 1955, the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations merged to form the AFL-CIO.
In 1984, the action comedy “Beverly Hills Cop,” starring Eddie Murphy, was released by Paramount Pictures.
In 2002, Strom Thurmond, the oldest and (until Robert Byrd overtook him) longest-serving senator in history, celebrated his 100th birthday on Capitol Hill. (In toasting the South Carolina lawmaker, Senate Republican leader Trent Lott seemed to express nostalgia for Thurmond’s segregationist past; the resulting political firestorm prompted Lott to resign his leadership position.)
In 2003, the two makers of flu shots in the U.S., Chiron and Aventis Pasteur, announced they had run out of vaccine and would not be able to meet a surge in demand.
In 2009, a jury in Perugia, Italy, convicted American student Amanda Knox and her former Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, of murdering Knox’s British roommate, Meredith Kercher, and sentenced them to long prison terms. (After a series of back-and-forth rulings, Knox and Sollecito were definitively acquitted in 2015 by Italy’s highest court.)
In 2013, Nelson Mandela, the anti-apartheid leader who became South Africa’s first Black president, died at age 95.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Author Joan Didion is 87. Author Calvin Trillin is
86. Opera singer Jose Carreras is 75. Musician and singer Jim Messina, and College Football Hall-of-Famer and former NFL quarterback Jim Plunkett are 74. World Golf Hall-of-Famer Lanny Wadkins is 72. Actor Brian Backer is 65. Pro and College Football Hall-of-Famer Art Monk is 64. Rock singer-musician John Rzeznik (The Goo Goo Dolls) is
56. Comedian-actor Margaret Cho is
53. Writer-director Morgan J. Freeman and actor Alex Kapp Horner are 52. Rock musician Regina Zernay (Cowboy Mouth) is 49. Actor Paula Patton is 46. Actor Amy Acker is 45. Actor Nick Stahl is 42. Actor Adan Canto is 40. R&B singer Keri Hilson and actor Gabriel Luna are 39. Actor Frankie Muniz is 36. Actor Ross Bagley is 33. Milwaukee Brewers All-Star outfielder Christian Yelich is 30.