Today in History - December 5
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1349 Dec 5, 500
Jews of Nuremberg were massacred during Black Death riots.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1443 Dec 5, Giuliano della Rovere,
later Pope Julius II (1443-1513), was born in Liguria.
(www.newadvent.org/cathen/08562a.htm)
1456 Dec 5, Earthquake struck
Naples and 35,000 died.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1484 Dec 5, Pope Innocent VIII
issued a bull deploring the spread of witchcraft and heresy in Germany.
He ordered that all cats belonging to witches scheduled to be burned,
be also burned. Kraemer and Sprenger, two Dominican friars, had induced
Pope Innocent VIII to issue a bull authorizing them to extirpate
witchcraft in Germany. [see 1486]
(SFEC, 1/5/97, zone 1 p.2)(HN, 12/5/98)(HNQ,
10/31/99)
1492 Dec 5, Columbus discovered
Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic).
(HFA, '96, p.20)(AM, 7/97, p.58)
1496 Dec 5, Jews were expelled
from Portugal by order of King Manuel I.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1570 Dec 5, Johan Friis,
chancellor of Denmark (b.1532), died. his share of spoliated Church
property had made him one of the wealthiest men in Denmark. Under King
Frederick II (1559-1588), who understood but little of state affairs,
Friis was well-nigh omnipotent. He was largely responsible for the
Scandinavian Seven Years' War (1562-1570), which did so much to
exacerbate the relations between Denmark and Sweden.
(http://tinyurl.com/7vnad)
1578 Dec 5, Sir Francis Drake
sailed into the port of Valparaiso. He had renamed his flagship, the
Pelican, to the Golden Hind, and ravaged the coasts of Chile and Peru
on his way around the world.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.22)(ON, 7/03, p.7)
1602 Dec 5, Giulio Caccini's
"Euridice," premiered in Florence.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1663 Dec 5, Severo Bonini (80),
composer, died.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1666 Dec 5, Francesco Antonio
Nicola Scarlatti, composer, was born.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1687 Dec 5, Francesco Xaverio
Geminiani, composer, was born.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1707 Dec 5, The Society of
Antiquaries of London was founded at the Bear Tavern in the Strand by
John Talman, the son of an architect, Humfrey Wanley, a student of
ancient inscriptions and Anglo-Saxon, and John Bagford, an eccentric
shoemaker and dealer in books. They met for the purposes of forming a
Society for the study of British antiquities, whose agreed aim was to
further the study of British history prior to the reign of James I.
(www.sal.org.uk/newsandevents/makinghistoryantiquaries/)(http://tinyurl.com/32uzwc)
1741 Dec 5-6, Russian princess
Elisabeth Petrovna grabbed power. Petrovna (31), the daughter of Peter
the Great, and her husband led a coup d’etat, deposed the infant Czar
Ivan VI, had him imprisoned and reigned until her death in 1762.
(PCh, 1992, p.294)(MC, 12/5/01)
1758 Dec 5, Johann Friedrich Fasch
(70), composer, died.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1766 Dec 5, London auctioneers
Christie's held their 1st sale. The British auction house Christie’s
was sold in 1998 to Francois Pinault, a French businessman and art
collector.
(HT, 3/97, p.74)(WSJ, 5/15/98, p.W12)(WSJ, 5/19/98,
p.B10)(MC, 12/5/01)
1776 Dec 5, Phi Beta Kappa was
organized as the first American college scholastic Greek letter
fraternity, at William and Mary College, Williamsburg, Va. In 2005 the
honor society had some 600,00 members with about 15,000 new members
joining annually.
(AP, 12/5/97)(HN, 12/5/98)(WSJ, 11/4/05, p.W12)
1782 Dec 5, Martin Van Buren, 8th
US President (1837-1841) was born in Kinderhook, N.Y. He was the first
chief executive to be born after American independence.
(AP, 12/5/08)
1791 Dec 5, Austrian composer
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died in Vienna, Austria, at age 35. His first
opera was "Idomeneo." In 1920 Hermann Abert authored “W.A. Mozart.” In
1991 Georg Knepler authored "Wolfang Amade Mozart," a Marxist view of
Mozart in his times. In 1995 Maynard Solomon published a psychoanalytic
biography of Mozart. In 1999 Peter Gay authored a Penguin short life of
Mozart and Robert W. Gutman authored the comprehensive biography
"Mozart."
(SFEC, 2/2/97, DB. p.54)(AP, 12/5/97)(WSJ, 12/2/99,
p.A20)(WSJ, 3/1/08, p.W8)
1792 Dec 5, George Washington was
re-elected president; John Adams was re-elected vice president.
(AP, 12/5/97)
1830 Dec 5, Christina Rossetti
(d.1894), poet (Winter Rain, Passing Away), was born in London. She
wrote devotional verse, curious fairy tales and category defying poems.
Her brothers, William Michael and Dante Gabriel, helped found the
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, whose professed aim was to revive the
purity and vividness they admired in late medieval art. Her story is
told by Jan Marsh in “Christina Rosetti: A Writer’s Life.” "Better by
far you should forget and smile, Than that you should remember and be
sad."
(WSJ, 7/25/95, p.A-10)(AP, 12/11/98)(MC, 12/5/01)
1831 Dec 5, Former President John
Quincy Adams took his seat as a member of the U.S. House of
Representatives.
(AP, 12/5/01)
1832 Dec 5, Andrew Jackson was
re-elected US president and became the 1st president to win an election
in which the turnout exceeded 50%. The US anti-Mason Party with William
Wirt drew 8% of the vote against Henry Clay and the eventual winner,
Andrew Jackson. Clay led the Whig Party which coalesced against the
power of Andrew Jackson. The Whigs came from the conservative,
nationalist wing of the Jeffersonian Republicans. The election served
as a referendum on Jackson’s position against the 2nd Bank of the US.
(Hem, 8/96, p.86)(WSJ, 7/8/99, p.A16)(Panic,
p.3)(AH, 6/07, p.45)
1837 Dec 5, Hector Berlioz'
"Requiem," premiered.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1839 Dec 5, George Armstrong
Custer (d.1876), Union cavalry leader who met his fate against Native
Americans at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, was born.
(HN, 12/5/98)
1848 Dec 5, President Polk
triggered the Gold Rush of '49 by confirming that gold had been
discovered in California. Paula Mitchell Marks later wrote “Precious
Dust,” an account of the gold rush. In 2002 H.W. Brands authored “The
Age of Gold: The California Gold Rush and the New American Dream.”
(AP, 12/5/97)(SFEC, 4/12/98, BR p.7)(SSFC, 8/18/02,
p.M1)
1859 Dec 5, Dion Boucicault's
"Octaroon," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1861 Dec 5, In the U.S. Congress,
petitions and bills calling for the abolition of slavery were
introduced.
(HN, 12/5/98)
1862 Dec 5, Union general Ulysses
Grant’s cavalry received a setback in an engagement on the Mississippi
Central Railroad at Coffeeville, Mississippi.
(HN, 12/5/98)
1864 Dec 5, Confederate General
Hood sent Nathan Bedford Forrest’s cavalry and a division of infantry
towards Murfreesboro, Tenn.
(HN, 12/5/98)
1867 Dec 5, Henry Haight
(1825-1878), the 10th governor of California (1867-1871), gave his
inaugural address.
(www.governor.ca.gov/govsite/govsgallery/h/biography/governor_10.html)
1868 Dec 5, 1st American bicycle
college opened in NY.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1876 Dec 5, Daniel Stillson (Mass)
patented the 1st practical pipe wrench.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1876 Dec 5, In NYC a fire in the
Brooklyn Theater killed 278 people.
(WSJ, 9/13/01,
p.B11)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kate_Claxton)
1890 Dec 5, Fritz Lang (d.1976),
film director, was born. His work included “Metropolis,” “M,” and “The
Big Heat.”
(WSJ, 4/3/00, p.A46)(HN, 12/5/00)
1890 Dec 5, Berlioz' opera "Les
Troyens," premiered in Karlsruhe.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1893 Dec 5, 1st electric car was
built in Toronto. It could go 15 miles between charges.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1894 Dec 5, Georges Feydeau's
"L'Hotel du Libre Echange," premiered in Paris.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1901 Dec 5, Walter Elias Disney
(d.1966), movie producer and animator, was born in Chicago. Walt Disney
created a cartoon empire with the character Mickey Mouse.
(AP, 12/5/97)(SFC, 11/4/98, p.E1)(HN, 12/5/98)(MC,
12/5/01)
1901 Dec 5, Werner Heisenberg
(d.1976), German physicist, was born. He discovered the uncertainty
principle and won the Nobel Prize in 1932.
(V.D.-H.K.p.337)(MC, 12/5/01)
1901 Dec 5, Grace Moore, American
soprano (One Night to Live), was born.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1904 Dec 5, Japanese destroyed
Russian fleet at Port Arthur in Korea.
(HN, 12/5/98)
1905 Dec 5, Otto Preminger,
director and producer (Laura, Exodus), was born in Austria.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1909 Dec 5, George Taylor made the
first manned glider flight in Australia in a glider that he designed
himself.
(HN, 12/5/98)
1912 Dec 5, Italy, Austria, and
Germany renewed the Triple Alliance for six years.
(HN, 12/5/98)
1916 Dec 5, Hans Richter (73),
composer, died.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1916 Dec 5, David Lloyd George
replaced Herbert Asquith as the British Prime Minister.
(HN, 12/5/98)
1921 Dec 5, The British Empire
reached an accord with Sinn Fein; Ireland was to become a free state.
(HN, 12/5/98)
1926 Dec 5, Sergei Eisenstein's
"Battleship Potemkin," debuted.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1926 Dec 5, Claude [Oscar] Monet
(b.1840), French painter (impressionist), died at Giverny, where he’d
painted since 1883. Monet was one of the original proponents of
Impressionism and--despite failing eyesight--painted fervently until
his death. He was born in Paris, but grew up observing nature on the
Normandy coast near Le Havre. While studying under Charles Gleyre,
Monet met fellow students Fridiric Bazille, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and
Alfred Sisley. They broke with their teacher and his conventions of
painting that included, among other traditions, the painting of outdoor
landscapes in a studio. Although he began to experiment with "series"
in the late 1870s, his trademark method only appeared in earnest in the
1890s. This involved a series of paintings of the same subject under
different lighting and weather conditions. Monet remained committed to
Impressionism long after many of his contemporaries had abandoned the
style. In 2006 over 1000 letters to Monet were auctioned.
(SSFC, 5/20/01, p.T8)(HNQ, 5/25/01)(SFC, 12/9/06,
p.E2)
1928 Dec 5, Paraguay initiated a
series of clashes, which led to full-scale war with Bolivia in spite of
inter-American arbitration efforts. Both belligerents moved more troops
into the Chaco Boreal, a wilderness region north of the Pilcomayo River
and west of the Paraguay River that forms part of the Gran Chaco. By
1932 war was definitely under way.
(www.onwar.com/aced/data/charlie/chaco1932.htm)
1931 Dec 5, Reverend James
Cleveland, considered the “King of Gospel,” was born.
(HN, 12/5/98)
1932 Dec 5, Richard Wayne Penniman
[Little Richard], singer, was born.
(HN, 12/5/00)
1932 Dec 5, German physicist
Albert Einstein was granted a visa, making it possible for him to
travel to the United States. In 2003 Thomas Levenson authored “Einstein
in Berlin.”
(AP, 12/5/97)(SSFC, 4/20/03, p.M2)
1933 Dec 5, Prohibition was
repealed--much to the delight of thirsty revelers--when Utah became the
36th state to ratify the 21st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The
nationwide prohibition of the manufacture, sale or transportation of
alcoholic beverages was established in January 1919 with passage of the
18th Amendment. Prohibition's supporters gradually became disenchanted
with it as the illegal manufacture and sale of liquor fostered a wave
of criminal activity. By 1932, the Democratic Party's platform called
for the repeal of Prohibition. In February 1933, Congress adopted a
resolution proposing the 21st Amendment to repeal the 18th and with
Utah's vote in December, Prohibition ended. Three-quarters of the
states approved the repeal of the 18th amendment and FDR proclaimed the
end of Prohibition.
(SFC, 4/7/96, p.B-11)(AP, 12/5/97)(HNPD, 12/5/98)
1933 Dec 5, SF became a dry city
with the death of Prohibition as the city went under state license
control with no licenses issued.
(SSFC, 11/30/08, DB p.58)
1933 Dec 5, In SF some 6,259 men
received pay from the Civil Works Administration for projects that
included Lake Merced road and Balboa reservoir.
(SSFC, 11/30/08, DB p.58)
1934 Dec 5, Joan Didion, essayist
and novelist, was born. Her work includes “Slouching Towards Bethlehem”
and “Play it a it Lays.”
(HN, 12/5/00)
1934 Dec 5, Italian and Ethiopian
troops clashed at the Ualual on disputed Somali-Ethiopian border.
(HN, 12/5/98)
1935 Dec 5, Calvin Trillin,
journalist and writer, was born.
(HN, 12/5/00)
1936 Dec 5, Armenian SSR,
Azerbaijan SSR, Georgian SSR, Kazakh SSR & Kirghiz SSR became
constituent republics of Soviet Union.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1936 Dec 5, The New Constitution
in the Soviet Union promised universal suffrage, but the Communist
Party remained the only legal political party.
(HN, 12/5/98)
1937 Dec 5, The Lindberghs arrived
in New York on a holiday visit after a two-year voluntary exile.
(HN, 12/5/98)
1940 Dec 5, Jan Kubelik (60),
composer, died.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1941 Dec 5, President Roosevelt
sent a message to Japanese Emperor Hirohito expressing hope that
gathering war clouds would be dispelled. Hirohito smiled enigmatically,
knowing that Japan would attack Pearl Harbor the next day.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1941 Dec 5, US aircraft carrier
Lexington and 5 heavy cruisers steamed out of Pearl Harbor.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1941 Dec 5, Sister Elizabeth
Kenny's new treatment for infantile paralysis, polio, was approved.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1941 Dec 5, Russian offensive in
Moscow drove out the Nazi army.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1942 Dec 5, Arthur Seyss-Inquart
ordered students in Nazi Germany to work.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1945 Dec 5, Four TBM Avenger
bombers disappear approximately 100 miles off the coast of Florida, in
what is considered the Bermuda Triangle.
(HN, 12/5/99)
1945 Dec 5, Petras Kalpokas
(b.1880), Lithuanian painter, died in Kaunas.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petras_Kalpokas)
1946 Dec 5, Jose Carreras, opera
tenor (I Lombardi, Werther, Three Tenors), was born in Barcelona, Spain.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1946 Dec 5, President Truman
created the Committee on Civil Rights by Executive Order #9808.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1950 Dec 5, Pyongyang in Korea
fell to the invading Chinese army.
(HN, 12/5/98)
1951 Dec 5, "Dragnet" premiered on
TV.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1951 Dec 5, "Shoeless" Joe
Jackson, of baseball's "Black Sox" scandal, died.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1952 Dec 5-8, A 4-day London
smog killed 4,703 people. Oxides of sulfur and other irritants from
coal smoke were blamed. [see Dec 4]
(PCh, 1992, p.937)(MC, 12/5/01)
1953 Dec 5, Italy and Yugoslavia
agreed to pull troops out of the disputed Trieste border.
(HN, 12/5/98)
1955 Dec 5, The US Montgomery Bus
Boycott began in 1955. In Montgomery, Alabama, Martin Luther King Jr.
organized a bus boycott and began the civil rights movement to end
segregation. Black residents chose Mr. King to head The Montgomery
Improvement Association, formed to sustain the protest against
segregation policies on the municipal buses.
(HFA, '96, p.44)(TMC, 1994, p.1955)(SFEM, 2/2/97,
p.8)
1956 Dec 5, Thornton Wilder's
"Matchmaker," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1957 Dec 5, The William Inge play,
“The Dark at the Top of the Stairs,” opened at New York's Music Box
Theatre and ran for a total of 468 performances, closing on January 17,
1959. It was directed by Elia Kazan. The drama was reworked by Inge
from his earlier play, Farther Off from Heaven, first staged in 1947 at
Margo Jones' Theatre '47 in Dallas, Texas.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_at_the_Top_of_the_Stairs)
1962 Dec 5, Pres. Kennedy
discussed stockpiling nuclear weapons to deter Soviet attacks with
senior staff including Def. Sec. McNamara and Gen. Maxwell Taylor.
(SFC, 2/7/02, p.A4)
1966 Dec 5,
Comedian and political activist Dick Gregory headed for Hanoi, North
Vietnam despite federal warnings against it.
(HN, 12/5/98)
1967 Dec 5, Benjamin Spock and
Allen Ginsberg were arrested for protesting Vietnam war.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1968 Dec 5, Eduardo Castera, a
Latin successfully hijacked a B-727 from Tampa to Cuba.
(http://cuban-exile.com/doc_176-200/doc0180.html)
1972 Dec 5, Gough Whitlam became
prime minister of Australia. He served to Nov 11, 1975.
(http://tinyurl.com/cr24r)
1973 Dec 5, Paul McCartney
released his "Band on the Run" album.
(www.amazon.com/Band-Run-Paul-McCartney-Wings/dp/B000002UCL)
1974 Dec 5, The TV show "Monty
Python's Flying Circus" was last shown on BBC. It had premiered on Oct
5, 1969.
(www.museum.tv/archives/etv/M/htmlM/montypython/montypython.htm)
1978 Dec 5, The American space
probe Pioneer Venus I, orbiting Venus, began beaming back its first
information and picture of the planet to scientists in Mountain View,
Calif.
(AP, 12/5/98)
1978 Dec 5, Afghan Pres. Nur
Mohammad Tarakai, head of People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan
(PDPA), signed a treaty of friendship with the Soviet Union.
(WUD, 1994, p.1691)(www.eedi.org.ua/eem/7eng.html)
1979 Dec 5, Feminist Sonia Johnson
was formally excommunicated by the Mormon Church because of her
outspoken support for the proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the
Constitution.
(AP, 12/5/99)
1979 Dec 5, Teresa De Simone (22)
was found strangled in her car outside the pub where she worked in
Southampton, 80 miles (130 kilometers) southwest of London. Sean
Hodgson initially confessed to the killing, but he later recanted and
pleaded not guilty. His lawyers argued he was a pathological liar and
any confession he made was false. In 2009 Hodgson was released from
prison based on DNA evidence.
(AP, 3/18/09)(http://tinyurl.com/c5jz3y)
1982 Dec 5, Seattle Univ. Baptist
Church declared sanctuary for Central American refugees.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1987 Dec 5, FBI agents searched a
federal prison where Cuban inmates had peacefully ended an 11-day
hostage siege the day before. The agents reported finding bottle bombs
and homemade machetes, but no booby-traps or bodies.
(AP, 12/5/97)
1988 Dec 5, A federal grand jury
in North Carolina indicted PTL founder Jim Bakker and former aide
Richard Dortch on fraud and conspiracy charges. Bakker was convicted of
all counts; Dortch pleaded guilty to four counts and cooperated with
prosecutors in exchange for a lighter sentence.
(AP, 12/5/98)
1988 Dec 5, The US Space Shuttle
Atlantis continued its classified mission.
(http://www.astronautix.com/craft/atlantis.htm)
1989 Dec 5, East Germany's former
leaders, including ousted Communist Party chief Erich Honecker, were
placed under house arrest.
(AP, 12/5/97)
1989 Dec 5, A French TGV train
reached a world record speed of 482.4 kph.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TGV_world_speed_record)
1990 Dec 5, President Bush, on a
visit to Argentina, said he was “not optimistic” that Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein would withdraw from Kuwait without a fight.
(AP, 12/5/00)
1991 Dec 5, Samuel K. Skinner was
named White House chief of staff by President Bush, succeeding John H.
Sununu.
(AP, 12/5/01)
1991 Dec 5, Richard Speck, who
murdered eight student nurses in Chicago in 1966 died of a heart attack
in prison a day short of his 50th birthday.
(USA Today, 5/14/96, p.3A)(AP, 7/14/97)(AP, 12/5/97)
1992 Dec 5, Ralph Klein, a
Progressive Conservative, was elected premier of Alberta. He began to
lead Canada in deregulation and privatization. Klein retired at the end
of 2006.
(Econ, 7/17/04, p.37)(Econ, 12/2/06, p.44)
1992 Dec 5, Russian President
Boris Yeltsin narrowly kept the power to appoint Cabinet ministers,
defeating a constitutional amendment that would have put his team of
reformers under the control of Russia's Congress.
(AP, 12/5/97)
1993 Dec 5, Astronauts began the
repair of Hubble telescope in space.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-61)
1993 Dec 5, A Palestinian boarded
a bus and opened fire with an assault rifle in the first major attack
in Israel since the signing of a peace pact with the PLO; the gunman
killed a reservist before being gunned down.
(AP, 12/5/98)
1994 Dec 5, President Clinton, on
a whirlwind visit to the Conference on Security and Cooperation in
Budapest, Hungary, urged European leaders to "prevent future Bosnias."
(AP, 12/5/99)
1994 Dec 5, Newt Gingrich was
elected the first Republican speaker of the US House in four decades.
(AP, 12/5/97)
1994 Dec 5, The Strategic Arms
Reduction Treaty (START I) went into effect and the United States and
Russia began to consider ratification of START II.
(www.fas.org/spp/starwars/crs/91-139.htm)
1994 Dec 5, In India’s Bihar state
a mob that pulled senior government official G. Krishnaiah out of his
car and beat him unconscious before shooting him to death because the
official's car had inadvertently crossed paths with the funeral
procession of a noted underworld don and aspiring politician, Chottan
Shukla. In 2007 Anand Mohan and two other politicians were sentenced to
hang for their role in the attack. Four others, including Mohan's wife,
Lovely Anand — also a former member of parliament — were sentenced to
life in prison by the court in Patna, the capital of Bihar state.
(AP, 10/4/07)(http://tinyurl.com/3yj99o)
1995 Dec 5, In the first hint of
movement at the budget talks, White House officials and Democratic
congressional leaders said they were preparing a seven-year
budget-balancing plan.
(AP, 12/5/00)
1995 Dec 5, Stanley Keith Runcorn
(73), a professor in geophysics, was killed by Paul Bradford Cain (26),
a kickboxer, at the Hotel San Diego. Cain was convicted in 1997 of
first-degree murder.
(SFC, 10/3/97, p.A20)
1995 Dec 5, Former South Korean
president Roh Tae-woo, four aides and a dozen top businessmen were
indicted in a bribes-for-favors scandal.
(AP, 12/5/00)
1996 Dec 5, President Clinton
announced the foreign policy team for his second term, including
Madeleine Albright as the first female secretary of state, Sen. William
Cohen of Maine, a Republican, as defense secretary and Anthony Lake as
CIA director.
(WSJ, 12/6/96, p.A1)(AP, 12/5/97)
1996 Dec 5, Alan Greenspan warned
that investors could be succumbing to “irrational exuberance.” Nasdaq
closed at 1300.12.
(WSJ, 7/24/02, p.A1)
1996 Dec 5, An African Summit
opened in Burkina Faso. New candidates for the position of UN
Secretary-general were to be considered.
(WSJ, 12/6/96, p.A1)
1996 Dec 5, In Colombia Isidro
Gil, a union leader at a Carepa Coca-Cola bottling plant, was killed at
work. It was later alleged that the plant manager hired right-wing
paramilitary to help wipe out union activity. In 2002 the labor union
filed suit against Coca-Cola in Miami.
(SFC, 6/6/02, p.A11)
1996 Dec 5, In Iran the Parliament
passed legislation that banned the use of foreign words and names in
the country. Only Farsi language names would be allowed.
(WSJ, 12/6/96, p.A12)
1996 Dec 5, In Serbia Milosevic
allowed the radio stations to resume broadcasting. The disputed
elections were to be reviewed by the Supreme Court.
(SFC, 12/6/96, p.B2)
1997 Dec 5, Pres. Clinton said US
troops in Haiti will continue their presence. Some 300-500 troops were
posted on a rotating basis for civil affairs work with an additional
150 US military police for security.
(SFC,12/6/97, p.A10)
1997 Dec 5, The space shuttle
Columbia returned from a 16-day mission that had been marred by the
bungled release of a satellite.
(AP, 12/5/98)
1997 Dec 5, The World Trade
Organization rejected American claims that the Fuji film company had
conspired with the Japanese government to keep Eastman Kodak products
out of Japan.
(SFC,12/5/97, p.C3)(AP, 12/5/98)
1997 Dec 5, In India explosions on
3 separate passenger trains left at least 10 dead and 64 injured in
Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
(SFC,12/6/97, p.A9)
1997 Dec 5, In Mexico City Mayor
Cuautemoc Cardenas (63) was sworn into office. He named Jesus Carrola
as head of the judicial police.
(SFC,12/6/97, p.A8)(SFC,12/11/97, p.C3)
1997 Dec 5, Pres. Yeltsin visited
the lower house of parliament and prodded the passage of the new budget
with austere spending plans.
(SFC,12/6/97, p.A9)
1997 Dec 5, In Spain a
politician’s bodyguard was shot to death hours before authorities
arrested 19 of 23 leaders of the pro-Basque independence party, Herri
Batasuna, in San Sebastian. Protestors also commandeered a bus and
burned it.
(SFC,12/6/97, p.A8)
1997 Dec 5, In northern Sri Lanka
Heavy fighting left some 250 dead. Guerrillas turned over the bodies of
111 government soldiers and some 150 Tamil rebel were believed killed
in Vavuniya.
(SFC,12/6/97, p.A9)
1997 Dec 5, Turkish troops began
an offensive against Turkish Kurds in northern Iraq. The 20,000 man
force was to be assisted by 8,000 men of the Kurdistan Democratic
party, an Iraqi group.
(SFC,12/6/97, p.A9)
1998 Dec 5, James P. Hoffa claimed
the Teamsters presidency after challenger Tom Leedham conceded defeat
in the union's presidential election.
(SFEC, 12/6/98, p.A9)(AP, 12/5/99)
1998 Dec 5, Former Senator Albert
Gore Senior (90), father of the vice president, died at his home in
Carthage, Tenn.
(AP, 12/5/99)
1998 Dec 5, In Nigeria local
government elections were held.
(SFEC, 12/6/98, p.A21)
1998 Dec 5, In Paraguay the ruling
Colorado Pary expelled former army chief Lino Oviedo and accused Pres.
Raul Cubas of defying the constitution for failing obey a Supreme Court
ruling to send Oviedo back to prison.
(SFEC, 12/6/98, p.A28)
1998 Dec 5, In South Korea the
first Japanese film since 1945 was screened. “Hana Bi” (Fireworks) was
the first film shown since a ban on Japanese work was lifted in Oct.
(SFEC, 12/6/98, p.A15)
1998 Dec 5, Pakistan's sinking
credit rating and unsuccessful talks with U.S. officials in Washington
caused a major setback to the stock market.
(UPI, 12/6/98)
1999 Dec 5, AFL-CIO chief John
Sweeney welcomed the collapse of World Trade Organization talks in
Seattle and the failure to agree on a new round of negotiations,
telling CBS’ “Face the Nation,” “No deal is better than a bad deal.”
(AP, 12/5/00)
1999 Dec 5, Cuban President Fidel
Castro demanded that the United States return five-year-old Elian
Gonzalez, who was rescued at sea, to his father in Cuba within 72
hours.
(AP, 12/5/00)
1999 Dec 5, In France Michele
Alliot-Marie (53) was elected as the 1st female leader of the
conservative Rally for the Republic.
(SFC, 12/6/99, p.A14)
1999 Dec 5, In Vietnam 4 days of
rain caused flooding that left over 109 people dead.
(SFC, 12/6/99, p.A14)(SFC, 12/7/99, p.B3)
2000 Dec 5, The US Nasdaq market
rose 274 points, 10.5%, to 2889 on hints from Greenspan that interest
rates may be cut. The Dow rose 338 to 10,898.
(SFC, 12/6/00, p.A1)
2000 Dec 5, Florida's highest
court kept the presidential race on the legal fast track, agreeing to a
speedy hearing of Al Gore's appeal of a ruling that in effect awarded
George W. Bush the state's 25 electoral votes.
(SFC, 12/6/00, p.A1)(AP, 12/5/01)
2000 Dec 5, The Israeli and
Palestinian violence was reported to have cost the Palestinians over
$500 million in lost wages and sales since late September.
(SFC, 12/6/00, p.A16)
2000 Dec 5, In the Ivory Coast
police battled opposition supporters for a 2nd day and at least 10
people were killed.
(SFC, 12/6/00, p.A18)
2000 Dec 5, In Japan Prime
Minister Yoshiro Mori appointed a new Cabinet that included 2 former
prime ministers, Miyazawa and Hashimoto.
(SFC, 12/5/00, p.A16)
2000 Dec 5, In Mexico Adolfo
Aguilar Zinser, the new chief of the national security council, vowed
to end illegal wiretapping.
(SFC, 12/6/00, p.C3)
2000 Dec 5, In Mexico City Manuel
Andres Lopez Obrador took office as mayor and vowed to delegate power
and resources down to the 1,352 neighborhood governments. Obrador
appointed women to 9 of his 15 cabinet seats.
(SFC, 12/6/00, p.C3)
2000 Dec 5, In South Africa 7
people were killed at 2 polling stations during the 2nd all-race
municipal elections. The elections slashed the number of municipalities
from 843 to 284 with 6 mega cities, each presided by a single mayor.
The ruling African National Congress (ANC) won at least 59% of the
contests.
(SFC, 12/6/00, p.A18)(WSJ, 12/7/00, p.A1)
2001 Dec 5, The FBI arrested
escaped fugitive Clayton Lee Waagner in St. Louis. Waagner was
suspected of mailing as many as 550 anthrax hoax letters to abortion
clinics. He was also wanted for bank robbery and other offenses. In
2002 Waagner was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
(SFC, 12/6/01, p.A13)(WSJ, 12/6/01, p.A1)(SFC,
1/26/02, p.A10)
2001 Dec 5, The National Park
Service web site was shut down by court order to keep hackers from
accessing Indian tribal funds.
(SFC, 1/5/02, p.A1)
2001 Dec 5, Nasa launched space
shuttle Endeavour to deliver a new 3-man crew to the Alpha space
station. Russian cosmonaut Yuri Onufrienko flew to replace Doug
Culbertson as skipper.
(WSJ, 12/6/01, p.A1)(SFC, 12/8/01, p.A2)
2001 Dec 5, The DJIA gained 129 to
finish above 10,000 for the 1st time in 3 months.
(SFC, 12/30/01, p.D8)
2001 Dec 5, Marjorie Dabney (70)
of Bakersfield, Ca., disappeared from the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. In
2008 DNA evidence identified her remains, which were found in a field
15 miles from the airport.
(SFC, 12/8/08, p.A4)
2001 Dec 5, A 2000-pound US bomb
killed 3 American Green Berets near Kandahar along with 18 Afghan
fighters. 20 Americans were injured along with 18 Afghan fighters
including newly appointed Afghan leader Hamid Karzai.
(SFC, 12/6/01, p.A1,15)(WSJ, 12/6/01, p.A1)
2001 Dec 5, Sir Peter Blake (53)
of New Zealand, 2-time America’s Cup winner, was killed on the research
vessel Seamaster by gunmen at Macapa, Brazil, near the mouth of the
Amazon. 7 men were arrested 2 days later and an 8th was still sought.
The final 2 suspects were arrested Dec 9.
(SFC, 12/7/01, p.A1)(SFC, 12/8/01, p.A2)(SFC,
12/10/01, p.A3)
2001 Dec 5, Afghan delegates in
Koenigswinter, Germany, signed an agreement for an interim post-Taliban
government to begin Dec 22.
(SFC, 12/6/01, p.A1)(AP, 12/5/02)
2001 Dec 5, In Jerusalem another
suicide bomber sd’d outside a hotel and 2 people were injured. Sharon
gave Arafat a 12-hour reprieve to arrest those responsible for the
attacks.
(SFC, 12/6/01, p.A3)
2001 Dec 5, Russia agreed to cut
its oil exports by 150,000 barrels a day to satisfy OPEC demands.
(WSJ, 12/6/01, p.A3)
2002 Dec 5, Trent Lott, Senate
Republican leader from Mississippi, made remarks that supported Sen.
Strom Thurmond's 1948 segregationist platform. The resulting firestorm
prompted Lott to resign his leadership position. Strom Thurmond, the
oldest and longest-serving senator in history, celebrated his 100th
birthday on Capitol Hill.
(SFC, 12/13/02, p.A4)(AP, 12/5/03)
2002 Dec 5, In Kansas City, Mo. a
pharmacist who had diluted chemotherapy drugs given to thousands of
cancer patients was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
(AP, 12/5/03)
2002 Dec 5, A severe ice and snow
storm snarled the eastern US down into the Carolinas, where over a
million customers lost power. 29 deaths were blamed on the storm and
its aftermath.
(SFC, 12/6/02, p.A3)(SSFC, 12/8/02, p.A14)
2002 Dec 5, The genetic code of
the Black 6 mouse, the most common breed of laboratory mouse, was
published in Nature.
(SFC, 12/5/02, p.A1)
2002 Dec 5, Roone Arledge (71),
ABC executive, died in New York.
(AP, 12/5/03)
2002 Dec 5, In Brazil 6 South
American presidents convened a summit of the continent's largest
trading bloc, aiming to work out a timetable for a free trade agreement
covering most of the continent.
(AP, 12/6/02)
2002 Dec 5, Ne Win (91), former
general and dictator, died in Yangon. His 26 years in power bankrupted
Myanmar (Burma) economically and spiritually.
(SFC, 12/6/02, p.A30)(WSJ, 12/6/02, p.A1)
2002 Dec 5, In Canada the high
court ruled that higher life forms such as mice can't be patented.
(WSJ, 12/6/02, p.A1)
2002 Dec 5, Kenya's Pres. Moi and
Ethiopian President Meles Zenawi met at the White House with Pres. Bush
to discuss terrorism as well as drought, AIDS and other problems facing
Africa.
(AP, 12/6/02)
2002 Dec 5, An explosion at
a McDonald's Restaurant in Makassar on Sulawesi island killed three
people and seriously wounded 11. A 2nd blast took place an hour later
in a car showroom owned by Indonesia's Social Welfare Minister Yusuf
Kalla.
(Reuters, 12/6/02)
2002 Dec 5, In Mexico City an
angry mob beat to death two of three youths who allegedly tried to rob
a taxi driver.
(AP, 12/6/02)
2002 Dec 5, In Pakistan a bomb
exploded at the Macedonian Consulate and 3 people were killed. Revenge
for a Mar 2 killing of 7 militants in Skopje was suspected.
(SFC, 12/6/02, p.A16)
2003 Dec 5, A federal judge in
Utah threw out the case against two civic leaders accused of bribery in
their efforts to bring the 2002 Winter Games to Salt Lake City.
(AP, 12/5/08)
2003 Dec 5, The two makers of flu
shots in the United States, Chiron and Aventis Pasteur, announced they
had run out of vaccine and would not be able to meet a surge in demand.
(AP, 12/5/04)
2003 Dec 5, Yahoo Inc. said it is
working on technology to combat e-mail spam by changing the way the
Internet works to require authentication of a message's sender.
(AP, 12/6/03)
2003 Dec 5, In eastern Afghanistan
6 children were crushed to death by a collapsing wall during an assault
by U.S. forces on a weapons compound.
(AP, 12/10/03)
2003 Dec 5, Shanghai's government
reported that its population has surged to more than 20 million people,
soaring by 3 million over the past year amid a flood of job seekers
from other parts of China.
(AP, 12/5/03)
2003 Dec 5, Hard-line vigilantes
attacked a close aide to Iran's president as he was about to give a
speech, repeatedly punching and kicking him, his wife.
(AP, 12/5/03)
2003 Dec 5, Israeli military
allowed a market in the divided West Bank city of Hebron to open for
the first time in more than a year.
(AP, 12/5/03)
2003 Dec 5, The Israeli military
shot and killed two Palestinians, armed with grenades and an explosive
device, crawling toward a security barrier separating the Gaza Strip
from Israel.
(AP, 12/6/03)
2003 Dec 5, A shrapnel-filled bomb
believed strapped to a suicide attacker ripped apart a commuter train
near Chechnya, killing 44 people and wounding nearly 200. Pres. Putin
called it an attempt to disrupt weekend parliamentary elections.
(AP, 12/5/04)
2003 Dec 5, A bus plunged into a
valley in the northern Mexico state of Zacatecas, killing 15 people and
injuring 15 others.
(AP, 12/6/03)
2003 Dec 5, In Nigeria in the
opening session of the summit of Britain and its former colonies
British PM Tony Blair urged African leaders not to lift Zimbabwe's
suspension from the Commonwealth.
(AP, 12/5/03)
2003 Dec 5, Syria continued to
reject US pressure to hand over an estimated $250 million that Saddam
Hussein's regime had deposited there.
(WSJ, 12/5/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 5, In Tunisia an
informal, two-day summit brought leaders from five southern European
countries together with five of their counterparts from across the
Mediterranean.
(AP, 12/5/03)
2004 Dec 5, US Senator McCain
demanded that baseball players and owners take action to tighten drug
testing and threatened legislation to that end.
(WSJ, 12/6/04, p.A1)
2004 Dec 5, In Bolivia Indian and
peasant organizations promising better access to health care and
education won every major city in local elections, trouncing
long-dominant parties.
(AP, 12/6/04)
2004 Dec 5, Egypt freed an Israeli
Arab businessman convicted of spying in exchange for Israel's release
of six Egyptian students.
(AP, 12/5/04)
2004 Dec 5, In Abkhazia (Georgia)
the two candidates vying for the region's presidency agreed to conduct
new elections and run on a joint ticket.
(AP, 12/6/04)
2004 Dec 5, Hungarians voted in a
referendum on extending citizenship to millions of ethnic Hungarians
living in the region.
(AP, 12/5/04)
2004 Dec 5, Gunmen opened fire at
the bus as it dropped off Iraqis employed by coalition forces at a
weapons dump in Tikrit. 17 people died and 13 were wounded. A suicide
car bomber drove into an Iraqi National Guard checkpoint in Beiji. 3
guardsmen, including a company commander, were killed and 18 wounded.
Guerrillas ambushed a joint Iraqi-coalition patrol in Latifiyah and
attacked Iraqi National Guardsmen patrolling near Samarra. 2 Iraqis
were killed and 10 wounded.
(AP, 12/6/04)
2004 Dec 5, In Kashmir a
remote-controlled roadside bomb blew up an army patrol car in a
pre-dawn attack, killing an Indian army major and 10 other soldiers.
(AP, 12/5/04)
2004 Dec 5, In Kazakhstan 23
people died and three others were injured in an explosion at a coal
mine in the Karaganda region.
(AP, 12/5/04)
2004 Dec 5, Authorities outside
Mexico City found the body of Enrique Salinas (51), the former Pres.
Salinas’ brother, with a bag tied around his head. 2 federal police
officers were arrested in 2005 for trying to extort money Salinas prior
to his murder.
(AP, 7/15/05)
2004 Dec 5, In Nigeria hundreds of
protesters besieged two oil platforms run by Royal Dutch/Shell Group
Cos. and ChevronTexaco Corp. in the southern oil region, shutting down
production of 90,000 barrels of oil a day.
(AP, 12/6/04)
2004 Dec 5, It was reported that
the Norwegian firm Hydro and Qatar's state energy company signed a deal
to build one of world's largest aluminium plants in the gas-rich Gulf
state at a cost of three billion dollars.
(AFP, 12/5/04)
2004 Dec 5, In Ramallah Jad
al-Hindi (19) was abducted by the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a violent
militant group linked to the dominant Fatah movement. Police found
al-Hindi's body the next day, saying he had been shot in the head 12
times.
(AP, 12/6/04)
2004 Dec 5, President Vladimir
Putin made the first official visit by a Russian leader to Turkey,
seeking to boost trade and counterterrorism cooperation between the two
countries.
(AP, 12/5/04)
2004 Dec 5, Carlos Moya beat Andy
Roddick 6-2, 7-6 (1), 7-6 (5) to clinch Spain's second Davis Cup title.
(AP, 12/05/05)
2004 Dec 5, Thailand airdropped
nearly 100 million Japanese-style origami cranes over the predominantly
Muslim southern region in a psychological effort toward peace. A series
of bomb attacks followed the next day.
(AP, 12/6/04)
2005 Dec 5, Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice denied the United States engaged in torture or lesser
forms of cruel treatment against terror suspects.
(AP, 12/5/06)
2005 ABC News named Elizabeth
Vargas and Bob Woodruff co-anchors of "World News Tonight," replacing
the late Peter Jennings.
(AP, 12/5/06)
2005 Dec 5, Intel Chairman Craig
Barrett said the chip-maker will invest more than $1 billion in the
next five years to expand its operations in India and in local
technology companies.
(AP, 12/05/05)
2005 Dec 5, A new version of King
Kong, directed by Peter Jackson, premiered in NYC.
(Econ, 12/10/05, p.68)
2005 Dec 5, Edward L. Masry, the
personal-injury lawyer portrayed by Albert Finney in the Oscar-winning
movie "Erin Brockovich," died in Thousand Oaks, Calif., at age 73.
(AP, 12/5/06)
2005 Dec 5, Austria officially
finished paying out nearly $350 million in restitution to former slave
and forced laborers compelled to work during WW II under Nazi control.
(SFC, 12/6/05, p.A8)
2005 Dec 5, Gay couples in Britain
began registering for civil partnerships as a law took effect giving
them many of the same legal rights as married heterosexuals.
(AP, 12/05/05)
2005 Dec 5, China ordered 150
Airbus single-aisle A320 airliners, more than twice as many plane
orders as the company's U.S.-based rival Boeing Co. snagged from China
last month.
(AP, 12/05/05)
2005 Dec 5, In Congo a magnitude
6.8 earthquake struck the Lake Tanganyika region of East Africa
toppling dozens of homes in Kalemie and burying children in the rubble.
Several people were reported killed.
(AP, 12/05/05)(WSJ, 12/6/05, p.A1)
2005 Dec 5, France's highest
administrative body ruled that Sikhs can wear their turbans in drivers'
license photos, overturning an earlier denial of a license to a Sikh
who refused to take off his turban for the photo.
(AP, 12/06/05)
2005 Dec 5, UN peacekeepers at a
checkpoint in Port-au-Prince opened fire on a car full of Haitian
police officers wounding two.
(AP, 12/09/05)
2005 Dec 5, In India a freight
train derailed, killing six people and injuring 50 others in a remote
district of eastern Orissa state.
(AP, 12/05/05)
2005 Dec 5, In Iraq unidentified
gunmen abducted a French engineer as he was on his way to work in
Baghdad. The trial of Saddam Hussein resumed in Baghdad. French
engineer Bernard Planche was kidnapped in Baghdad. He was later freed.
(AP, 12/05/05)(AP, 12/5/06)
2005 Dec 5, Opposition leaders in
Kazakhstan said that the overwhelming re-election of President
Nursultan Nazarbayev should be declared invalid, and foreign observers
said the balloting did not meet international standards.
(AP, 12/05/05)
2005 Dec 5, Myanmar's military
junta reopened a key national constitutional convention.
(AP, 12/05/05)
2005 Dec 5, Frits Philips (100),
Dutch businessman, grandson of the founder of Philips, died. He turned
a family business into Philips Electronics in 40 years of leadership.
(WSJ, 12/7/05, p.A1)(http://tinyurl.com/dfnu4)
2005 Dec 5, In southeastern
Nigeria Separatist protesters demanding authorities release their
leader shut down businesses and banks, and an activist said security
forces opened fire on the crowd, killing three people.
(AP, 12/05/05)
2005 Dec 5, A Palestinian suicide
bomber blew himself up among shoppers waiting to enter a mall in the
Israeli town of Netanya, killing at least 5 people and wounding more
than 30 others.
(AP, 12/05/05)
2005 Dec 5, Officials said courts
in Uzbekistan have convicted another 58 alleged participants of the May
uprising in Andijan and sentenced them to up to 20 years in prison.
(AP, 12/05/05)
2005 Dec 5, In Venezuela President
Hugo Chavez's governing party won full control of the 167-National
Assembly, claiming a sweeping victory in congressional elections
boycotted by major opposition parties.
(AP, 12/05/05)
2005 Dec 5, In Venezuela a Dec 3
explosion that damaged an oil pipeline supplying the country's largest
refinery was reported to have been caused by government foes attempting
to disrupt congressional elections. Interior Minister Jesse Chacon said
investigators found remnants of C-4 explosives at three spots on the
pipeline.
(AP, 12/05/05)
2006 Dec 5, Robert Gates won
speedy and unanimous approval from the Senate Armed Services Committee
to be secretary of defense.
(AP, 12/5/07)
2006 Dec 5, New York became the
first city in the nation to ban artery-clogging trans fats at
restaurants. The ban became effective July 1,2007.
(AP, 12/6/06)(SFC, 7/2/07, p.A4)
2006 Dec 5, An annual US report
put Minnesota at the top of its health rankings for the fourth straight
year, while concluding that the nation's health improved slightly.
(AP, 12/5/06)
2006 Dec 5, In Alabama Geontae
Glass, a 5-year-old boy who was asleep in the back of a car when it was
stolen from a parking lot a day earlier, was found dead in a
neighboring county.
(AP, 12/5/06)
2006 Dec 5, A suicide bomber
plowed his car into a convoy of NATO troops in Afghanistan's southern
city of Kandahar, wounding nine civilians and two soldiers.
(AP, 12/5/06)
2006 Dec 5, In Brazil a court said
it had released the passports of two US pilots of a private jet
involved in a collision with a Boeing 737 over the Amazon that killed
154 people.
(AP, 12/6/06)
2006 Dec 5, British PM Tony Blair
and Rwandan President Paul Kagame discussed economic reform and how to
reconcile the people of the landlocked African state still scarred by
the 1994 genocide. They also talked about the conflict in the western
Darfur region of Sudan, where Rwanda has troops on the ground as part
of the African Union force.
(AFP, 12/5/06)
2006 Dec 5, The EU presidency
backed a proposal to partially suspend EU membership talks with Turkey
because of Ankara's refusal to open up to trade with Cyprus.
(AP, 12/5/06)
2006 Dec 5, The military seized
control of Fiji after weeks of threats, locking down the capital with
armed troops and isolating at home the elected leader whose last-minute
pleas for help from foreign forces were rejected. Commodore Frank
Bainimarama named Dr. Jona Senilagakali, a military medic with no
political experience, as caretaker prime minister and said a full
interim government would be appointed next week to see the country
through to elections that would restore democracy sometime in the
future. PM Laisenia Qarase, who had caved in to all demands, was
deposed anyway. Pres. Ratu Josefa Iloilo, refused to rubber-stamp
Bainimarama’s “doctrine of necessity.”
(AP, 12/5/06)(Econ, 12/9/06, p.49)
2006 Dec 5, Knut became the first
polar bear born to be born in Germany’s Berlin Zoo in 30 years. He was
rejected by his mother and spent his first 44 days in an incubator.
Zookeeper Thomas Doerflein (d.2008 at 44) raised the cub by hand.
(www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,461624,00.html)(SFC, 9/26/08, p.B9)
2006 Dec 5, In Germany world chess
champion Vladimir Kramnik lost the sixth and decisive game against
computer program Deep Fritz, ceding a hard-fought Man vs. Machine match
4-2.
(AP, 12/5/06)
2006 Dec 5, In Haiti at least 8
people were killed over the last few days in the Martissant slum during
a gang feud set off by the Dec 3 murder of a police officer. The
officer's killing reignited an ongoing battle between the rival Grand
Ravine and Ti Manchet gangs.
(AP, 12/7/06)
2006 Dec 5, An Indian court
sentenced Shibu Soren, former cabinet coal minister, to life behind
bars for conspiracy in the abduction and murder of an aide. The court
had found him guilty of the 1994 murder and abduction of his former
private secretary, Shashi Nath Jha, who was allegedly blackmailing him
over a corruption scandal.
(AFP, 12/5/06)
2006 Dec 5, Iranian President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed to stick by the nuclear program and issued a
new threat to downgrade relations with the EU if European negotiators
opted for tough sanctions. A media rights group warned that Internet
censorship in Iran is on the rise after Iran blocked access to the
popular video-sharing Web site YouTube.com.
(AP, 12/6/06)
2006 Dec 5, Iraq’s PM Nouri
al-Maliki said his government will send envoys to neighboring countries
to pave the way for a regional conference on ending the rampant
violence. Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, the top American military
spokesman in Iraq, said the US military expects all of Iraq to be under
the control of Iraqi forces by mid-2007. Suspected insurgents set off a
car bomb to stop a minibus carrying Shiite government employees in
Baghdad, then shot and killed 15 of them. In another attack in the
capital, two car bombs exploded in a commercial district, killing 15
other Iraqis.
(AP, 12/5/06)
2006 Dec 5, An Italian prosecutor
asked for the indictment of 26 Americans and Italian secret service
officials on a charge of kidnapping an Egyptian cleric in Milan in 2003.
(AP, 12/5/06)
2006 Dec 5, Ivory Coast police
fired into a crowd protesting President Laurent Gbagbo's regime and
killed one person, as political opponents mounted rallies in several
towns in the southern part of the divided West African country.
(AP, 12/5/06)
2006 Dec 5, Jamaica reported 15
cases of malaria in the Kingston area, the first in 15 years.
(WSJ, 12/6/06, p.A1)
2006 Dec 5, Kuwait's highest court
overturned the conviction of Nasser Najr al-Mutairi, a former
Guantanamo Bay prisoner who was returned to the emirate in 2005.
(AFP, 12/5/06)
2006 Dec 5, Mexico’s Pres.
Calderon, under pressure to promote the social programs his leftist
rival championed, presented an austere budget that increases spending
for social programs to help the country's poorest. Mexican police
arrested Flavio Sosa, the symbolic leader of a six-month-long protest
movement that took over southern Oaxaca city, hours after he gave a
news conference saying he had come to the capital to start talks with
the government.
(AP, 12/5/06)
2006 Dec 5, Pakistan President
Gen. Pervez Musharraf said he is willing to give up its claim to all of
Kashmir if India agrees that the disputed Himalayan region should
become self-governing and largely autonomous. Troops shot dead three
Islamic militants in Indian Kashmir, while 19 civilians were injured
and a guerrilla was killed in a grenade blast.
(AP, 12/5/06)(AFP, 12/5/06)
2006 Dec 5, The first foreign aid
flights of food and medicines arrived in the eastern Philippines.
Officials said devastating mudslides had left at least 1,266 people
dead or missing.
(AFP, 12/5/06)
2006 Dec 5, A Russian court
sentenced Ruslan Melnik (22), a leader of an extremist group known as
the Mad Crowd, to 3 1/2 years in prison for hate crime attacks on
foreigners.
(AP, 12/5/06)
2006 Dec 5, Somalia's government
ruled out peace talks with the country's Islamic movement, citing truce
violations, heightening fears of an all-out war.
(AFP, 12/5/06)
2006 Dec 5, In South Africa the
findings of a new report said nearly 300 million dollars worth of gold
is stolen every year by underground pirates from mines. The report
found that 41% of gold thieves were mine employees and 56% were
unemployed.
(AFP, 12/5/06)
2006 Dec 5, A shell apparently
fired by Congolese troops fighting forces loyal to a dissident general
near the Ugandan border landed among a group of some 12,000 refugees in
Uganda, killing at least seven.
(AFP, 12/6/06)
2006 Dec 5, Pro-Moroccan leaders
in the Western Sahara presented a self-rule plan for a government,
parliament and legal system in the territory, while acknowledging
Rabat's sovereignty.
(AFP, 12/6/06)
2006 Dec 5, Typhoon Durian slammed
into Vietnam's southern coast as a tropical storm. A Dec 7 government
report said nearly 100 people were killed or are missing after the
typhoon hit the southern coast.
(AP, 12/6/06)(Reuters, 12/7/06)
2006 Dec 5, In Yemen a gunman
opened fire outside the US Embassy, but Yemeni guards quickly shot and
arrested him.
(AP, 12/5/06)
2006 Dec 5, Zimbabwe's top union
body vowed to stage new protests against the government, saying it had
failed to address the plight of workers reeling under four-digit
inflation, high taxes and a shrinking labor market.
(AFP, 12/5/06)
2007 Dec 5, President George W.
Bush, trying to keep pressure on Iran, called on Tehran to "come clean"
about the scope of its nuclear activities or else face diplomatic
isolation.
(AP, 12/5/08)
2007 Dec 5, California Governor
Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver inducted the 2007
California Hall of Fame inductees: Ansel Adams, Milton Berle, Steve
Jobs, Willie Mays, Robert Mondavi, Rita Moreno, Jackie Robinson, Jonas
Salk, M.D., John Steinbeck, Elizabeth Taylor, Earl Warren, John Wayne,
and Tiger Woods.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Hall_of_Fame)
2007 Dec 5, In Omaha, Nebraska,
Robert A. Hawkins (19) sprayed the third floor of the Von Maur
department store in Westroads Mall with gunfire. When the shooting was
over, Hawkins killed himself. His victims included six store employees
and two customers. An autopsy report later indicated that only some
Valium in his system.
(AP, 12/6/07)(SFC, 1/2/08, p.A3)
2007 Dec 5, It was reported that
the world’s largest helium reserve near Amarillo, Texas, was expected
to run out by 2015. The Bush Dome, begun as a reserve by the government
in 1925, supplied 35% of the world’s current usage.
(WSJ, 12/5/07, p.B1)
2007 Dec 5, Andrew Imbrie
(b.1921), composer and teacher, died in Berkeley, Ca. His work included
the opera “Angle of Repose”, which was commissioned and premiered
(1976) by the SF Opera.
(SFC, 12/8/07, p.B3)
2007 Dec 5, Afghan forces clashed
with Taliban who had blocked a main highway in the south, killing 10
militants. A suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden car into a
minibus carrying Afghan soldiers south of Kabul, killing at least 13
people and wounding 20 others.
(AP, 12/5/07)
2007 Dec 5, An international aid
organization said Angolan soldiers routinely and repeatedly rape
Congolese women who have crossed the border illegally in search of work
in the diamond fields.
(AP, 12/5/07)
2007 Dec 5, Australia’s PM Kevin
Rudd spoke at the state funeral for Bernie Banton (61), who died from
an asbestos-related disease he contracted while working for building
products company James Hardie. Banton's dogged campaign ultimately led
to the establishment of a 4 billion dollar (3.5 billion US)
compensation fund for victims of Hardie's asbestos products.
(AFP, 12/5/07)
2007 Dec 5, Bolivian President Evo
Morales announced he would ask for a referendum on whether he should
remain president, and challenged opposition governors to do the same.
(AP, 12/5/07)
2007 Dec 5, In Bosnia 4 men
wearing police uniforms and armed with automatic weapons stormed
Sarajevo international airport's cargo zone and stole $1.9 million.
(AP, 12/6/07)
2007 Dec 5, British police
arrested John Darwin (57) on fraud charges, five years after he
vanished in an apparent canoeing accident in the North Sea, only to
reappear last weekend, claiming he had amnesia.
(AP, 12/5/07)
2007 Dec 5, Congo's army said it
retook a strategic town on from rebels loyal to renegade Tutsi General
Laurent Nkunda in the violence-torn eastern province of North Kivu.
(AP, 12/5/07)
2007 Dec 5, French police arrested
two armed people in connection with a weekend shooting that left two
Spanish officers dead in what authorities described as the first
Basque-related killings in France in more than three decades.
(AP, 12/5/07)
2007 Dec 5, In Germany 3 men were
convicted of aiding the al-Qaida in Germany, including one who
prosecutors say was part of the terrorist network's command structure
and had contact with top leaders.
(AP, 12/5/07)
2007 Dec 5, In Darry, Germany, the
bodies of 5 young boys, ages 3 to 9, were found in their home after
their 31-year-old mother told a doctor where they were. Authorities in
eastern Germany announced they had found the bodies of three infant
girls and had taken their mother into custody on manslaughter charges.
(AP, 12/6/07)
2007 Dec 5, Karlheinz Stockhausen
(b.1928), German avant-garde composer, died. His innovative electronic
works made him one of the most important composers of the postwar era.
His work included “Kontakte” (1959-60) and “Stimmung” (1968), a sextet
for unaccompanied voices on a 6-note chord of B-flat.
(AP, 12/8/07)(Econ, 12/15/07, p.95)
2007 Dec 5, A survey said Indian
business confidence has slumped to a five-year low on the back of
flagging exports, aggressive monetary tightening and a rising rupee
that has slowed the economy.
(AFP, 12/5/07)
2007 Dec 5, A blast hit the
northern city of Mosul. Police said explosives hidden in a parked car
killed a civilian and wounded seven others. A car bomb exploded in a
largely Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad and killed at least 14 people.
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said during a visit to the capital
that security and stability were within reach, although more work is
needed. In Baqouba a suicide car bomber targeted a bus station and
killed five civilians with at least 20 others wounded. In Kirkuk a
parked car bomb killed three Kurdish soldiers in a convoy guarding a
police chief.
(AP, 12/5/07)
2007 Dec 5, Latvia's center-right
government resigned after coming under intense criticism for firing a
popular anti-corruption investigator and failing to restrain inflation.
(AP, 12/5/07)
2007 Dec 5, Liberia cleared its
debt arrears with the World Bank, paving the way for new development
lending and debt cancellation that will help the West African country
rebuild after years of civil war.
(Reuters, 12/5/07)
2007 Dec 5, Mexican police
conducted the biggest anti-logging raid in the nation's history at
clandestine sawmills that cut timber on a threatened nature reserve
where Monarch butterflies nest in the winter. Authorities in the
Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez said that they plan to exhume the
remains of more than 4,000 unidentified people buried in common graves
and take DNA samples in an attempt to identify them.
(AP, 12/5/07)(AP, 12/7/07)
2007 Dec 5, Six judges on
Nicaragua's Supreme Court threw out a law meant to block neighborhood
councils that will report directly to President Daniel Ortega. But
other judges call the ruling itself illegal.
(AP, 12/6/07)
2007 Dec 5, Two Palestinian
militants were killed by Israeli tank fire in northern Gaza. Lt. Gen.
Gabi Ashkenazi said Israel's army has completed plans for a large
offensive in the Gaza Strip and is only waiting for government approval
for the action.
(AP, 12/5/07)
2007 Dec 5, Sri Lanka’s defense
ministry said at least 36 people including 7 soldiers were killed in
fresh fighting between security forces and Tamil rebels in the
embattled north. A land mine explosion blamed on Tamil separatists tore
through a passenger bus crowded with civilians in northern Sri Lanka,
killing at least 16 people and wounding 22 others.
(AFP, 12/5/07)(AP, 12/6/07)
2007 Dec 5, Turkish soldiers
killed eight Kurdish rebels, increasing the rebel death toll to 14 in a
two-day clash near the border with Iraq.
(AP, 12/5/07)
2008 Dec 5, The US and China
pledged to work together to tackle global financial turmoil as they
wrapped up economic talks but left open whether the high-level dialogue
will continue under President-elect Barack Obama.
(AP, 12/5/08)
2008 Dec 5, The US labor Dept.
said employers slashed 533,000 jobs in November, the most in 34 years,
catapulting the unemployment rate to 6.7 percent, dramatic proof the
country is careening deeper into recession.
(AP, 12/5/08)
2008 Dec 5, O.J. Simpson was
sentenced in Las Vegas from 9 to 33 years in prison for kidnapping and
assaulting two sports memorabilia dealers with a deadly weapon.
(AP, 12/6/08)
2008 Dec 5, Nina Foch (b.1924),
Dutch-born Hollywood film star, died in Los Angeles. Her films included
“An American in Paris” (1951).
(SFC, 12/13/08, p.A5)
2008 Dec 5, In Afghanistan 3
Canadian soldiers were killed by a massive bomb, bringing to 100 the
number who have lost their lives since the country's military mission
there started in 2002.
(AP, 12/6/08)
2008 Dec 5, Australia's driest
state was forced to purchase water for the first time to ensure
adequate supplies in the midst of a drought. Karlene Maywald, state
water security minister, said South Australia has purchased 61 billion
gallons (231 gigaliters) of water so that Adelaide, the state capital,
will have enough water for 2009 even if the drought continues.
(AP, 12/5/08)
2008 Dec 5, In southern China
about 100 factory owners and employees held up red protest banners
outside a government building, demanding that officials help them
collect more than $13 million in debts from an electronics factory that
recently closed.
(AP, 12/5/08)
2008 Dec 5, In northeast Colombia
suspected leftist rebels attacked a small police convoy with explosives
and automatic weapons, killing eight police officers and wounding one.
Police blamed the attack on the National Liberation Army (ELN), which
operates in the oil-producing region bordering Venezuela.
(AP, 12/5/08)
2008 Dec 5, A boat from the
Dominican Republic was found adrift. 2 survivors were found by
fisherman and 49 others were presumed dead. Migrants had set off on Nov
13 in search of jobs in Puerto Rico.
(AP, 12/6/08)
2008 Dec 5, India and Russia
signed a civilian nuclear deal that would see Russia build four nuclear
reactors for power-starved India.
(AP, 12/5/08)
2008 Dec 5, Police in India
arrested two Indian men accused of illegally buying mobile phone cards
used by the gunmen in the Mumbai attacks. In eastern India suspected
Maoist rebels killed five police officers in an ambush.
(AP, 12/6/08)(AP, 12/5/08)
2008 Dec 5, Iranian state radio
said police confirmed that a militant group active in Iran has killed
all 16 police officers it abducted in June. Shortly after the
abduction, the Sunni Muslim Jundallah group said it had executed two of
the officers and threatened to kill the remaining 14 unless imprisoned
members of the group were released.
(AP, 12/5/08)
2008 Dec 5, In Iraq three women
were killed in Balad Ruz, north of Baghdad, when a bomb planted in a
radio exploded.
(AP, 12/5/08)
2008 Dec 5, Israeli defense
officials reinstated a ban on international journalists entering the
Gaza Strip, despite protests from the heads of major news organizations
and an appeal to the country's Supreme Court.
(AP, 12/8/08)
2008 Dec 5, Japan approved a law
that will grant citizenship to all children born out of wedlock to
Japanese fathers who acknowledge them, regardless of the nationality of
their mothers.
(AP, 12/5/08)
2008 Dec 5, Kyrgyzstan's state
radio station was reported to have taken BBC programming off the
airwaves, days after withdrawing broadcasting rights from US-funded
Radio Liberty's Kyrgyz Service.
(AP, 12/5/08)
2008 Dec 5, Gerardo Garay,
Mexico's former acting federal police chief, was accused of
collaborating with a notorious cartel and stealing money from a mansion
during a raid to bust a drug trafficking ring. Victor Serrano (24), a
hit team chief, was wounded and 3 alleged gang members died in a
shootout in Mexicali. 14 others were arrested.
(AP, 12/5/08)(AP, 12/8/08)
2008 Dec 5, In Pakistan a car bomb
devastated a busy street in the northwestern city of Peshawar, killing
303030at least 29 people and injuring about a hundred.
(AP, 12/5/08)(AP, 12/6/08)(Econ, 12/13/08, p.50)
2008 Dec 5, In Romania Constantin
Ticu Dumitrescu (80), once jailed as a communist-era "enemy of the
state," died after years of fighting to reveal details of the country's
troubled past.
(AP, 12/5/08)
2008 Dec 5, Russian Orthodox
Patriarch Alexy II (79) died. He had presided over a vast post-Soviet
revival of faith but struggled against the influence of other churches.
(AP, 12/5/08)
2008 Dec 5, In Saudi Arabia nearly
3 million Muslims from all over the world gathered in Mecca, on the eve
of the start of the annual hajj pilgrimage.
(AP, 12/5/08)
2008 Dec 5, In Somalia 12 people
were killed as mortar shells rained down on homes and a small
market in Mogadishu.
(SFC, 12/6/08, p.A5)
2008 Dec 5, In southern Thailand 4
people were killed by a bomb at a drugstore suspected to have been
planted by Muslim insurgents.
(AP, 12/5/08)
2008 Dec 5, The leaders of
Pakistan and Afghanistan met for Turkish-sponsored talks aimed at
reducing tensions over militant attacks along the countries' lawless
border.
(AP, 12/5/08)
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