05 Dec History: This Date

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Events, deaths, births, of DEC 05
[For Dec 05 Julian go to Gregorian date: 1582~1699: Dec 15 — 1700s: Dec 16 — 1800s: Dec 17 — 1900~2099: Dec 18]

MIRROR SITES ALL FOR 021205 ANY DAY OF THE YEAR IN HISTORY ART “4” DEC 05

On a December 05:

2002 The previous evening, the US government's Air Transportation Stabilization Board declared “based on unreasonably optimistic revenue projections” the business plan of United Airlines' parent corporation UAL and rejected UAL's request for a $1.8 billion loan guarantee, which would have enabled UAL to obtain the bank loans it needs to avert Chapter 11 bankrupcy, for which it would apply on 09 December 2002 [PDF], the largest bankruptcy in airline industry history. Today, UAL is downgraded by Deutsche Securities from Hold to Sell. Standard & Poors downgrade UAL's debt to the lowest rating: D (for “default”). On the New York Stock Exchange, trading in the UAL shares is halted immediately after they drop at the opening (at 09:30) from their previous close of $3.12 to $1.28. They drop further when trading resumes at 13:44 and close (at 16:00) at $1.00. 44 million UAL share-transactions are made (which does not mean that 44 million of the 66 million UAL shares were traded, as some undoubtedly were traded several times during the day). The next day UAL stock would drop further, to an intraday low of 75 cents, and closes at 93 cents, after 48 million share-transactions; it is susceptible to delisting if it trades below $1 for more than 30 days. UAL had traded as high as $17.90 as recently as 12 March 2002 and $95.63 on 30 March 1998. 36 million of the 66 million shares of UAS are owned by its employees. UAL had been trying to obtain $5.2 billion in wage and benefit concessions from its employees , and $7.7 billion in cuts from vendors and other sectors. UAL had also cut another $60 million from company officers' compensation packages. [5~year price chart >] Effective on 06 December 2002, UAL is replaced in the Dow Jones Transportation Average (of 20 companies) by United Parcel Service (UPS).

2002 Major auction of US art at Christie's. MORE

2002 In Angola, President and Prime Minister Jose Eduardo dos Santos names his Interior Minister Fernando Dias dos Santos (not related) to take over as Prime Minister. Jose dS cumulated both top government posts since 1998, to better wage war against the UNITA rebels. The civil war began in 1975 when Angola gained independence from Portugal and ended in April 2002, shortly after government forces killed UNITA's leader Jonas Savimbi. Fernando dS, 50, has been interior minister since 1996. Previously he served as deputy minister for state security and national police chief. The ruling-party MPLA has governed Angola for 27 years.

2002 Homeless and unkempt Alice Perley walks into the Nashville, Tennessee, branch of the A. G. Edwards & Sons brokerage, and says that she has an account with the firm, which they find out to be true. In 1994, Perley, a college graduate with a chemistry degree, property, and other investments, had disappeared from her home in Kentucky after a painful divorce. She left a commercial flight during a stopover at Nashville's airport and, apparently suffering from partial amnesia, lived in the woods, on the streets, and in shelters. Her brother, Fred Perley of Charlotte NC, comes on 06 December 2002 to take her home.

2002 At the 100th-birthday party for US Senator Strom Thurmond (R-SC), Trent Lott, 61, of Mississippi, unwittingly puts an end to his being Senate Republican leader (since 1996 when Bob Dole left the post to conduct an unsuccessful presidential campaign) when he says: “I want to say this about my state. When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years either.” In 1948 Thurmond had been the presidential candidate of the segregationist Dixiecrat Party. Lott's words would bring attention to his lifelong racist attitudes, and, with abject apologies and lip-service to racial equality, he would fail to placate opponents, while dismaying his conservative supporters. After stubbornly insisting that he would remain Senate Republican leader, Lott would suddenly resign the post on 20 December 2002.

2001 Sri Lanka parliamentary elections
      Promising open markets, economic development and peace talks with separatist rebels, the opposition United National Party wins Sri Lanka's bloodiest parliamentary elections.

[Ranil Wickremesinghe, leader of the victorious main opposition United National party speaks during a media conference in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Thursday, 06 December 2001 — photo >]

      "It's clear from the results of the election that we have been defeated," Prime Minister Rathnasiri Wickremanayake would say in a statement faxed by his office on Friday 07 December 2001. "I am immediately resigning from my post."
      The United National Front, a coalition headed by former prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, won 120 of Parliament's 225 seats, his party secretary, Senarath Kapukotawa, announced after a meeting of the election commissioner and all parties. Kapukotawa said all sides had agreed not to repoll in the areas hit by the worst violence, where blockades, shootings, explosions and ballot-stealing had kept voters from the polls. President Chandrika Kumaratunga invited Wickremesinghe to discuss formation of a new Cabinet and naming of a prime minister at her home on Saturday, state-run radio said. The report did not say whether Wickremesinghe would be asked to lead the government. Kumaratunga, elected separately to a term that ends in 2005, had indicated during the campaign that she might use her constitutional powers to choose a prime minister other than the leader of the winning party or coalition. The two are bitter enemies. Official results announced from 16 out of the 22 districts showed the UNP with 71 seats, and its ally, the Tamil United Liberation Front, with three. Kumaratunga's People's Alliance had 52 seats, and its Marxist ally, the People's Liberation Front, had 10. Wednesday's (05 Dec 2001) election was this tropical island nation's most violent in 53 years of democracy. Sixty-one people died and more than 100 were wounded. More violence broke out Friday when a 33-hour curfew was lifted, and so it was reimposed following the announcement of the results. The Colombo All Share Index closed at its highest closing level in three years and had its highest percentage gain ever, 20.1 percent. The UNP is seen as more market friendly than Kumaratunga's People's Alliance. Wickremesinghe had focused on development and economic recovery during the campaign, while the president's party concentrated on the need to fight the Tamil separatist rebels in an 18-year war that has damaged tourism revenues and caused deficit defense spending. Counting of votes in Kandy, and in Gampaha - where the president lives - had been stopped Thursday night after opposition parties called for fresh elections. However, the United National Party gained two more seats than the People's Alliance - an indication of why the opposition changed its mind about a revote. The army had blockaded roads in the north and east, preventing up to 130,000 Tamil minority voters from reaching the polls on Wednesday. The military said the action was taken to prevent Tamil rebels - fighting for a separate homeland in a war that has killed more than 64,000 people - from infiltrating with would-be voters.
--- On the Web: Monitoring group: www.cpalanka.org
Political analysts, Lanka Academic: www.lacnet.org
Military: www.slarmy.org
Elections Department: www.slelections.gov.lk

2001 Three lifers, wrongly convicted, free at last.
Calvin Ollins, left is joined by Omar Saunders, center, and Larry Ollins as Calvin is released from the Joliet Correctional center in Joliet, Ill. Wednesday 05 December 2001 after DNA tests proved there was no evidence linking the three in the rape and murder of medical student Lori Roscetti in 1986. Larry Ollins and Omar Saunders were released earlier in the day from the Stateville Correctional Center outside Joliet.Photo by M. Spencer Green [photo >]

Calvin Ollins couldn't stop looking out the window. After DNA evidence set him free following a 14-year prison term, Ollins gazed out his lawyer's window and admired the view - even if it was only a crowded suburban Chicago parking lot. "I was so used to waking up with no window. This is beautiful," the 29-year-old Ollins said. Ollins was released from Joliet Correctional Center on Wednesday 05 December 2001, less than an hour after his cousin Larry Ollins, 31, and Omar Saunders, 32, were released from nearby Stateville Correctional Center. All were serving life without parole. Circuit Court Judge Dennis J. Porter ordered the men's release after prosecutors said they had no evidence the men had anything to do with the death of Lori Roscetti, who was killed in October 1986 on her way home from a studying session on Chicago's West Side. Porter also expunged the conviction of a fourth defendant, Marcellius Bradford, who served 6 1/2 years. Their release marks the latest in an embarrassing string of cases in which men have been sent to prison and even death row from Chicago-area courts only to be found years later to have been wrongfully convicted. Thirteen men have been freed from death row in Illinois since 1987 because of wrongful convictions, prompting Gov. George Ryan to impose a moratorium on capital punishment in the state. Ollins' enjoyment of the view from the second-story office in Naperville was just one reminder of all he and the others have missed during their nearly 15 years behind bars. There was, for example, the laughter when they were handed metal knives and forks instead of the plastic utensils prison inmates eat with. There was the pointing at bunches of grapes, something they said they hadn't seen since their freedom was taken. And there were shaking heads when Calvin Ollins seemed to suddenly realize that he'd been locked up for almost the entirety of Michael Jordan's NBA career. But there were also bad memories. Saunders has a long scar on his head - evidence of more than a dozen times he was been stabbed while in prison. And more painful than those wounds, he said, is the understanding that so many people he knows came to suspect he was capable of rape and murder. "That was the hardest," he said. Saunders thinks the reason he never heard from his two daughters, who are now 15 and 14, is because their mothers thought he was guilty. "I don't know where they are," he said of his daughters, as he stood outside Joliet Correctional Center. "Hopefully this will bring them out of the darkness." As for their plans, the men said they don't really have any beyond staying in a hotel the next night or two, and reuniting with friends and family. "We learned by being incarcerated you want to take it one day at a time," said Saunders. Their attorney, Kathleen Zellner, told reporters there would be a lawsuit filed within days against the police, prosecutors and the crime lab that helped convict the four men. "I think they know what's coming," said Saunders of the authorities who put him and the others in prison. "They know a storm is coming." Assistant State's Attorney Celeste Stack told the judge that the initial investigation was "done in good faith, based on the best evidence we had at the time," but Zellner blasted those who helped convict the four men. "I cannot overstate the official misconduct, the abuse of power, the activities that went on that I believe were criminal in nature," Zellner said after Porter ordered the men released. At trial, police crime lab analyst Pamela Fish testified that semen taken from the victim's body and her clothing could have belonged to three of the defendants. But a DNA expert later examined Fish's notes and said they show that none of the four men had a blood type matching the samples. In fact, DNA tests by Cook County State's Attorney Richard Devine's office showed that none of the four hairs and 22 semen stains found on Roscetti's jacket matched any of the men charged. "If not for the DNA I wouldn't be standing here," Zellner said. "The DNA shows these people had nothing to do with raping and murdering Lori Roscetti."

2000 Se produce la fusión entre la multinacional canadiense Seagram y el grupo francés Vivendi, con lo que nace el segundo mayor grupo de comunicación mundial por detrás de AOL-Time Warner.

Elian enjoys piñata
1999 Elian Gonzalez celebrates his 6th birthday one day early.

      Object of an international dispute created by Cuban exiles in the US and by Fidel Castro, Elian González anticipates the celebration of his 6th birthday by one day.

      Elian's uncle and aunt, Lazaro and Angela Gonzalez are joined by other Miami relatives and friends, some 50 in all, to help Elian celebrate.

      Elian receives many gifts of clothes and, what he prefers, toys. He gets a piñata and a birthday cake. He gets to ride a horse and to play with other children.    (source: Miami Herald 991206)

1999 Tiene lugar el primer encuentro del IRA con la Comisión Independiente Internacional de Desarme presidida por el general canadiense John de Chastelain.

1997 El pintor y escritor Ramón Gaya Pomes recibe el Premio Nacional Español de Artes Plásticas.
1997 El Fondo Monetario Internacional (FMI) adelanta una bajada de ocho décimas en el crecimiento mundial para 1998, que pasan del 4,3% al 3,5%, como consecuencia de la crisis económica en Asia.

1997 High-speed modem fight resolved ^top^
High-speed modem makers and longtime rivals 3Com and Rockwell International tentatively agreed to end their bitter feud over technical standards on December 5, 1997. The International Telecommunications Union, a branch of the United Nations, brokered a deal in which the modem makers agreed to a compromise standard that would accommodate both companies' technologies. Until then, 56k modems were slow to catch on, as consumers waited for a single standard to emerge.

1996 It is reported that Microsoft has gotten several computer makers to renounce replacing Windows' opening screen with their own, which they had created to assist new users. Microsoft thus seeks to have a monopoly preventing rivals like Netscape and AOL from endangering Microsoft's dominance.
1991 Finaliza la reunión de presidentes iberoamericanos en la "multicumbre" de Cartagena, con avances en la integración política y económica y la firma de acuerdos sobre la democratización de Cuba y Haití.
1991 Ucrania deroga el tratado de su participación en la URSS, firmado en 1922, y Leonid Kravchuk toma posesión como presidente de la República.
1991 Charles Keating Jr (Lincoln Savings & Loan fraud), found guilty
1989 Se proclama un Gobierno de mayoría no comunista en Checoslovaquia y Karel Urbanel anuncia la rehabilitación de 500'000 excluidos del PC tras la Primavera de Praga.

1988 Televangelist indicted for fraud and conspiracy ^top^
The Reverend Jim Bakker, a popular television evangelist, is indicted by a federal grand jury in North Carolina on twenty-four counts of fraud and conspiracy. Bakker, the founder of the Christian organization PTL, standing for "Praise the Lord" or "People that Love" (or "Pass The Loot"?), built an evangelist empire that included Heritage USA., a 172-million-dollar theme park in Fort Mill, South Carolina. In 1987, Bakker resigned his ministry following admittance of an extramarital affair, and in 1988 he was sued by the new PTL management for mismanagement and unjustified compensation, leading to his trial for fraud and conspiracy. On October 24, 1989, among other charges, Bakker is found guilty of defrauding 114'000 PTL followers by selling $1000 "partnerships" that promised lifetime lodging rights at the Heritage USA. theme park. Bakker oversold the lodging units and used the funds to pay PTL operating expenses and support his lavish lifestyle. Convicted on all twenty-four counts, he is sentenced to forty-five years is prison and fined $500'000. However, in 1991 an appeals court finds the forty-five-year sentence excessive and reduces it to eighteen years, and in 1994, Bakker is paroled after serving just under five years in prison.

1985 Dow Jones Industrial Average rises above 1500 for 1st time but a sell-off follows.

1985 El Reino Unido se retira de la UNESCO.
1983 Se disuelve la Junta Militar argentina, y el general retirado Reynaldo Benito Antonio Bignone es nombrado presidente provisional hasta que asuma el poder Raúl Ricardo Alfonsín Folukes.
1980 A raíz del asesinato de tres religiosas y una misionera estadounidenses en El Salvador, Ronald Reagan decide suspender la ayuda política y militar al país, y enviar una comisión investigadora.

1978 USSR signs "friendship treaty" with puppet Afghan government. ^top^
In an effort to prop up an unpopular pro-Soviet regime in Afghanistan, the Soviet Union signs a "friendship treaty" with the Afghan government agreeing to provide economic and military assistance. The treaty moved the Russians another step closer to their disastrous involvement in the Afghan civil war between the Soviet-supported communist government and the Muslim rebels, the Mujahideen, which officially began in 1979. The Soviet Union always considered the bordering nation of Afghanistan of interest to its national security. Since the 1950s, the Soviet Union worked diligently to establish close relations with its neighbor by providing economic aid and military assistance. In the 1970s matters took a dramatic turn in Afghanistan, and in April 1978, members of the Afghan Communist Party overthrew and murdered President Sardar Mohammed Daoud. Nur Mohammed Taraki, head of the Communist Party, took over and immediately declared one-party rule in Afghanistan. The regime was extremely unpopular with many Afghans so the Soviets sought to bolster it with the December 1978 treaty. The treaty established a 20-year period of "friendship and cooperation" between the Soviet Union and Afghanistan. In addition to increased economic assistance, the Soviet Union promised continued cooperation in the military field. Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev declared that the treaty marked a "qualitatively new character" of relations between the two nations. The treaty, however, did not help Afghanistan. Taraki was overthrown and killed by members of the Afghan Communist Party who were dissatisfied with his rule in September 1979. In December, Soviet troops moved into Afghanistan and established a regime more amenable to Russian desires. Thus began what many pundits referred to as "Russia's Vietnam," as the Soviets poured endless amounts of money, weapons, and manpower into a seemingly endless civil war. Mikhail Gorbachev finally began the withdrawal of Russian troops nearly 10 years later.

1977 Egypt breaks diplomatic relations with Syria, Libya, Algeria, Iraq and South Yemen
1975 Estados Unidos sufre una contundente derrota política ante el bloqueo de Hispanoamérica, al perder cinco votaciones consecutivas en el consejo político de la Organización de Estados Americanos (OEA), que estudia la reforma del sistema interamericano.

1970 North Vietnam says that it will defend its air space no matter what. ^top^
A North Vietnamese newspaper declares that the country will not be intimidated by US bombing threats. Earlier in the week, US Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird had warned that the US would initiate new bombing raids on North Vietnam if the communists continued to fire on unarmed reconnaissance aircraft flying over their air space. Responding to Laird's threats, North Vietnamese officials declared that any US reconnaissance planes that flew over North Vietnam would be fired upon. This declaration implied that North Vietnam would not be forced into concessions, and was prepared to continue the war regardless of the cost.

1961 Tienen lugar duros combates entre soldados de la Organización de las Naciones Unidas (ONU) y katangueños en el Congo.
1957 NYC becomes 1st city to legislate against racial or religious discrimination in housing (Fair Housing Practices Law)

1956 Under US and UN pressure, British and French evacuate the Suez Canal ^top^
Under pressure from the United States and the United Nations, British and French forces occupying the Suez Canal in Egypt begin their withdrawal from Egypt. The Suez Canal, which stretches 101 miles across the Isthmus of Suez, connecting the Mediterranean and Red seas, was first completed under the direction of French diplomat Ferdinand de Lesseps in 1869. The canal rapidly became one of the world's most heavily traveled shipping lanes, and, in 1882, British troops invaded Egypt, beginning a forty-year occupation of the country and a seventy-five-year occupation of the Suez Canal Zone. During the early 1950s, Egyptian nationalists rioted in the Canal Zone and organized attacks on British troops, and on July 26, 1956, Egyptian President Gamal Abdal Nasser nationalized the canal, and subsequently barred British, French, and Israeli shipping. In response, Israel launched an attack on Egypt and its Arab allies on October 29. In a lightning attack, Israeli forces under General Moshe Dayan seized the Gaza Strip drove through the Sinai to the east bank of the Suez Canal. Two days later, Britain and France, whose diplomats were expelled from Egypt and ships also barred from the Suez, entered the conflict in a coalition with Israel, demanding the immediate evacuation of Egyptian forces from the Suez Canal. American and U.N. pressure forced the coalition to halt the hostilities and a U.N. emergency force was sent to occupy the Canal Zone, eventually leaving the canal in Egypt's hands in the next year.

1955 Rosa Parks refuses to give up her bus seat.         ^top^
    Black Rosa Parks, 42, tired and on her way home from work as a department store seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama, refuses to relinquish her seat to a White man, as the law requires, when the bus becomes crowded. Parks is arrested and fined $14.
    This results in a 381-day Black boycott of buses in Montgomery, where two-thirds of the riders are Black. A US Supreme Court decision eventually forced the city to desegregate its bus system and helped motivate the civil rights movement that would overturn the institutional segregation of the Old South.
      At the time Parks acted, Black riders in Montgomery were required to pay their fare at the front door of the bus, then enter by the back door. Besides having to give up their seats to White passengers, they were not allowed to sit across the aisle from them.
     The bus in question would be sold in an Internet auction on 25 October 2001 for $492'000 to the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, not far from where Parks has made her home in Detroit since 1957 after efforts to find a job in Alabama failed.

1955 AFL and CIO merge, with George Meany as president.

1952 The Great Killer Smog engulfs London.        ^top^
      In southern England the weather of November and the first days of December had been considerably colder than average, with heavy falls of snow in towards the end of November. The people of London were burning large quantities of coal in their grates. Smoke was pouring from the chimneys of their houses and becoming trapped beneath the inversion of an anticyclone that had developed over southern parts of the British Isles during the first week of December. Trapped, too, beneath this inversion were particles and gases emitted from factory chimneys in the London area, along with pollution which the winds from the east had brought from industrial areas on the European mainland.
     Early on 05 December in the London area, the sky was clear, winds were light and the air near the ground was moist. Conditions were ideal for the formation of radiation fog. The sky was clear, so a net loss of long-wave radiation occurred and the ground cooled. The moist air in contact with the ground cooled to its dew-point temperature and condensation occurred. Cool air drained katabatically into the Thames Valley. Beneath the inversion of the anticyclone, the very light wind stirred the saturated air upwards to form a layer of fog 100–200 meters deep. Along with the water droplets of the fog, the atmosphere beneath the inversion contained the smoke from millions of chimneys in the London area and farther afield. Elevated spots such as Hampstead Heath were above the fog and grime. From there, the hills of Surrey and Kent could be seen. During the day on 05 December, the fog was not especially dense and generally possessed a dry, smoky character. When nightfall came, however, the fog thickened. Visibility dropped to a few meters.
     The smog would not clear until 09 December. Possibly up to 12'000 would die from its effects.

1951 A temperature inversion and air pollution turn the London fog into a smog that, by the time it lifts after 13 December, would have killed 2850 persons.
1950 Sikkim becomes a protectorate of India
1946 President Truman creates Committee on Civil Rights by Executive Order #9808
1943 Prosigue la ofensiva aliada en dirección a Pescara en el contexto de la Segunda Guerra Mundial.

1941 US aircraft carrier Lexington sails away from Pearl Harbor ^top^
The Lexington, one of the two largest aircraft carriers employed by the United States during World War II, makes its way across the Pacific in order to carry a squadron of dive bombers to defend Midway Island from an anticipated Japanese attack. Negotiations between the United States and Japan had been ongoing for months. Japan wanted an end to US economic sanctions. The Americans wanted Japan out of China and Southeast Asia and Japan to repudiate the Tripartite "Axis" Pact with Germany and Italy before those sanctions could be lifted. Neither side was budging. President Roosevelt and Secretary of State Cordell Hull were anticipating a Japanese strike as retaliation-they just didn't know where. The Philippines, Wake Island, Midway Island-all were possibilities. American intelligence reports had sighted the Japanese fleet movement out from Formosa (Taiwan), apparently headed for Indochina. The US State Department demanded from Japanese envoys explanations for the fleet movement across the South China Sea. The envoys claimed ignorance. Army intelligence reassured the president that, despite fears, Japan was most likely headed for Thailand-not the United States. The Lexington never made it to Midway Island; when it learned that the Japanese fleet had, in fact, attacked Pearl Harbor, it turned back-never encountering a Japanese warship en route or employing a single aircraft in its defense. By the time it reached Hawaii, it was December 13.

1941 Gran Bretaña declara la guerra a Finlandia, Hungría y Rumanía.

1940 Hitler approves plans to attack USSR ^top^
Hitler approves plans for an attack on the USSR that were later outlined in Germany's Operation Barbarossa directive of December 18. With this directive, Hitler abandoned Germany's Nonaggression Pact of 1939 with the Soviet Union and launched a massive invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. In spite of intelligence from all quarters that the German army was massing for attack, the Red Army was taken by surprise. German armored units drove deep into Soviet territory and at one point reached the outskirts of Moscow before Soviet counterattacks and winter weather slowed the offensive to a halt. After a bitterly fought and finally unsuccessful attack on Stalingrad (1942-1943), German forces in the Soviet Union lost momentum, and, as the Red Army continued to draw on its huge manpower reserves, it began to push the Germans back from the western portions of the Soviet Union. By 1944, Soviet forces had pushed the Germans completely out of the Soviet Union and had advanced into Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Romania. By early 1945 they occupied the eastern third of Germany.

1936 Armenian SSR, Azerbaijan SSR, Georgian SSR, Kazakh SSR & Kirghiz SSR becomes republics of the Soviet Union
1935 1st commercial hydroponics operation established (Montebello CA)
1933 21st Amendment to the US Constitution ratified (as Utah becomes the 36th state to ratify), repealing 18th Amendment (Prohibition)(17:32 EST) — Abolición en Estados Unidos de la "Ley Seca", que prohibía la venta y consumo de bebidas alcohólicas y estuvo en vigor durante 13 años.
1932 German physicist Albert Einstein granted a visa to the US
1930 Dimite el gobierno de André Tardieu en Francia.
1924 La ciudad de Medina, que alberga la tumba del profeta Mahoma, ocupada por Abd al Aziz Ibn Saud III.
1920 En un referéndum celebrado en Grecia, la mayoría de los votantes pide el regreso del rey Constantino I.
1918 Se instaura en España un nuevo Gobierno de Alvaro de Figueroa y Torres Conde de Romanones, quien manifiesta su disconformidad con la autonomía de Cataluña.
1912 Se acuerda prolongar por seis años la Triple Alianza.
1905 Henry Campbell-Bannerman (Lib) becomes PM of England
1881 47th Congress (1881-83) convenes
1879 1st automatic telephone switching system patented 1879 Automatic telephone system Daniel and Thomas Connolly and Thomas McTighe received a patent for the first automatic telephone system on this day in 1879. Previously, telephone calls were placed through operators. The system patented on this day allowed users to place their own calls, but it was never commercially applied. The first successful system was put into use in 1892.
1865 Perú y Chile firman un tratado de alianza ofensiva-defensiva y ambos países declaran poco después la guerra a España.
1865 US Treasury Secretary Hugh McCulloch recommends the discontinuation of greenbacks, paper money introduced during the Civil War. However, proponents of greenbacks would succed in maintianing them into the 1870s.
1862 Engagement at Coffeeville, Mississippi
1848 President Polk triggers Gold Rush of '49, by confirming California gold discovery
1835 Texan army, led by Benjamin Rush Milam, starts attack on Mexican-held San Antonio, which will fall four days later, though Milam is killed by a sniper bullet on 07 December.
1831 Former US President John Quincy Adams takes his seat as member of House of Representatives.
1792 George Washington was re-elected US President; John Adams was re-elected vice president.
1496 Jews are expelled from Portugal by order of King Manuel I
1492 Columbus discovers Hispaniola (La Española) (Haiti) — Cristóbal Colón, en su primer viaje, descubre la isla que los indígenas llamaban Quisqueya y que él denominó La Española.
1484 Innocent VIII issued his famous "Witch Bull,"ordering Inquisition to systematically discover, torture and execute witches throughout Europe. This was done also by Protestants, even in the American colonies two centuries later.

TO THE TOP

Deaths which occurred on a December 05:
2002 Three persons, by explosion at a McDonald's restaurant in a shopping mall in Makassar, South Sulawesi, Indonesia.
2002 Bilal Quereshi, another man, and a woman, their throats cut after they were gagged and bound hand and foot, shortly after midnight. Their bodies are discovered in the morning in the rubble after an explosion destroys Karachi offices of the honorary consul of Macedonia, where Quereshi, a Pakistani Christian was a night watchman, who should have been alone in the building. On the walls, scribbled in Urdu: “al-Qaida Pakistan, result of adultery”' and “Message for Infidels / Loyalty will be returned in loyalty. / Oppression in oppression. / We are men like you. / We will do what you will do.” In March 2002, in Macedonia, police killed seven Pakistani by shooting at a van that tried to drive through a roadblock. In the van were seven AK-47 assault rifles, ammunition, and hand grenades. The Pakistanis were planning attacks on Western embassies. One of them was Ahmet Ikaz, 24, known to Interpol as a criminal.
2002 Shu Maung “U Ne Win”, under house arrest, Burmese general and dictator (1962-1990), born on 24 May 1911. [1997 photo >]
2002 Rick Grannis and Garry Williams, pilot and sole passenger of a prototype Four Winds 192 single turboprop aircraft (4 seats, range 1600 km) which crashes in the evening into the Federal Reserve Bank building in Miami. The body of Williams is found the next day on a golf course across the street. Williams was sales manager, and Grannis instructor and salesman of Four Winds Aircraft company.
1994 Ryan Wilkieson, 16, and his mother, Cathy Wilkieson, who kills Ryan to save him from a life of suffering cerebral palsy and commits suicide. Carbon monoxide is the cause of both deaths.
1991 Richard Speck, on the eve of his 50th birthday. He had murdered eight student nurses in Chicago in 1966.
1982 Juan Martín Luna, en un enfrentamiento con la Policía en Barcelona, presunto máximo responsable de los GRAPO (Grupos de Resistencia Antifascista Primero de Octubre) .
1979 Sonia Delaunay, pintora rusa.

1945: 14 airmen on training flight, then 13 on rescue plane vanish into Bermuda Triangle         ^top^
      At 14:10, five US Navy Avengers bombers comprising Flight 19 take off from the Ft. Lauderdale Naval Air Station in Florida on a routine two-hour training mission. Flight 19 is scheduled to take them due east for 193 miles, north [JFC: obviously not due north] for 117 km, and then back over a final 193-mile leg that would return them to the NAS base.
      Approximately two hours later, the leader of the squadron, who had been flying in the area for over six months, reports that his compass and back-up compass have failed and that his position is unknown. Over a dozen radar facilities on land are contacted to assist in the location of Flight 19, but the location of the lost squadron is not determined. After two more hours of confused messages from the flyers, a last radio transmission from the squadron leader is heard at 18:20, calling for his men to prepare to simultaneously ditch their aircraft after running out of fuel. By this time, several land radar stations have determined that Flight 19 is somewhere north of the Bahamas and east of the Florida coast, and by 19:27, a PBM Mariner aircraft is airborne from Banana River with a thirteen-man crew on a search expedition. Three minutes later, the Mariner aircraft radios to its home base that its mission is underway, and it is never heard from again, although there was a report from a tanker cruising off the coast of Florida of a visible explosion at 19:50.
      The disappearance of the fourteen men of Flight 19 and the thirteen-man crew of the Mariner leads to one of the largest air and seas searches in history, as hundreds of ships and aircraft comb over 500'000 square kilometers of the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, and remote locations within the interior of Florida. No trace of bodies or aircraft are ever found. Although naval officials maintain that the remains of the six aircraft and twenty-seven men were not found because stormy weather destroyed the evidence, the story of the "Lost Squadron" becomes a central element of the legend of the infamous Bermuda Triangle area of the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico.

1939 Day 6 of Winter War: USSR aggression against Finland. [Talvisodan 6. päivä] ^top^
More deaths due to Stalin's desire to grab Finnish territory.

Parliament assembles for the first time in Kauhajoki.

Karelian Isthmus: the covering force on the Isthmus launches its final counterattack at Perkjärvi, ending in a Finnish withdrawal behind the main defensive position.In places the withdrawal shows signs of panic.

Ladoga Karelia: Finnish troops disengage from Ägläjärvi.

Official sources say 80 enemy tanks have so far been destroyed or put out of action.

General Headquarters sets up a central office of censorship and a number of local offices to supervise war censorship.

The Finnish Broadcasting Company urges its listeners to be on their guard against Russian propaganda, and indicates it will use as many familiar announcers as possible in its own broadcasts.

Abroad: Chile, Bolivia, Peru and Paraguay have today protested against the Soviet Union's attack on Finland.

1926 Claude Monet, French painter born on 14 November 1840.— MORE ON MONET AT ART “4” DECEMBER — LINKS — Direct links to reproductions of 189 paintings — Water Lilies — Waves Breaking — Sailboats on the Seine — The Grand Canal, Venice — The Rouen Cathedral. Portail. The Albaine Tower — The Rouen Cathedral at Noon — The Rouen Cathedral —The Rouen Cathedral at Twilight — The Rouen Cathedral in the Evening — The White Water Lilies — The Japanese Bridge — Water-Lilies (1914) — Water-Lilies — Water-Lilies — Impressions: Soleil Levant (hence the name Impressionists) — Impression: Sunrise — Garden in Bordighera, Impression of Morning — Impression: Sunset, Pourville — Impression: Sunrise — — La Grenouillère —The Walkers — Women in the Garden — The Walk. Lady with a Parasol — La Japonaise — Impression: Sunrise — La Gare Saint-Lazare — Rue Saint-Denis, Festivities of 30 June, 1878. — The Rocks of Belle-Ile — Cliffs at Belle-Ile — Poplars on the Bank of the River Epte (1890) — Poplars on the Banks of the Epte (1891) — Poplars on the Bank of the River Epte (1891) — Haystack, Snow Effects, Morning — Haystack. End of the Summer. Morning — Haystack at the Sunset near Giverny
1925 Wladislav Stanislaw Reymont, escritor polaco.
1924 Cipriano Castro, presidente de Venezuela.
1891 Pedro II, emperador de Brasil.
1876: 295 trampled or burned to death in fire at Brooklyn Theater
1859 Poinsot, mathematician.

1848 Joseph Mohr, 56, Austrian Roman Catholic vicar and author on 24 December 1818 of the lyrics of the enduring Christmas hymn, "Stille Nacht". Oberndorf Church organist Franz Gruber composed the melody.

Stille Nacht

1. Stille Nacht! Heil'ge Nacht!
Alles schläft; einsam wacht
Nur das traute hoch heilige Paar.
Holder Knab' im lockigten Haar,
|: Schlafe in himmlischer Ruh! :|

2. Stille Nacht! Heil'ge Nacht!
Gottes Sohn, o wie lacht
Lieb' aus deinem göttlichen Mund,
Da uns schlägt die rettende Stund'.
|: Jesus in deiner Geburt! :|

3. Stille Nacht! Heil'ge Nacht!
Die der Welt Heil gebracht,
Aus des Himmels goldenen Höhn,
Uns der Gnaden Fülle läßt sehn,
|: Jesum in Menschengestalt! :|

4. Stille Nacht! Heil'ge Nacht!
Wo sich heut alle Macht
Väterlicher Liebe ergoß,
Und als Bruder huldvoll umschloß
|: Jesus die Völker der Welt! :|

5. Stille Nacht! Heil'ge Nacht!
Lange schon uns bedacht,
Als der Herr vom Grimme befreit
In der Väter urgrauer Zeit
|: Aller Welt Schonung verhieß! :|

6. Stille Nacht! Heil'ge Nacht!
Hirten erst kundgemacht
Durch der Engel Alleluja,
Tönt es laut bei Ferne und Nah:
|: "Jesus der Retter ist da!" :|

Silent Night.

Silent Night! Holy Night!
All is calm, all is bright
Round yon godly tender pair.
Holy infant with curly hair,
Sleep in heavenly peace, :|

Silent Night! Holy Night!
Son of God, love's pure light
Radiant beams from thy holy face,
With the dawn of redeeming grace,
Jesus, Lord at thy birth :|

Silent Night! Holy Night!
Brought the world gracious light,
Down from heaven's golden height
Comes to us the glorious sight:
Jesus, as one of mankind, :|

Silent Night! Holy Night!
By his love, by his might
God our Father us has graced,
As a brother gently embraced
Jesus, all nations on earth, :|

Silent Night! Holy Night!
Long ago, minding our plight
God the world from misery freed,
In the dark age of our fathers decreed:
All the world redeemed, :|

Silent Night! Holy Night!
Shepherds first saw the sight
Of angels singing alleluia
Calling clearly near and far:
Christ, the savior is born, :|

Sainte Nuit

Nuit de paix, Sainte nuit
Dans le ciel L'astre luit
Dans les champs tout repose en paix
Mais soudain dans l'air pur et frais
Le brillant chœur des anges
Aux bergers apparaît

Nuit de foi, Sainte nuit
Les bergers sont instruits
Confiants dans la voix des cieux
Ils s'en vont adorer leur Dieu
Et Jésus, en échange
Leur sourit radieux

Nuit d'amour, Sainte nuit
Dans l'étable, aucun bruit
Sur la paille, est couché l'enfant
Que la Vierge endort en chantant
Il repose en ses langes
Son Jésus ravissant

Nuit d'espoir, Sainte nuit
L'espérance a reluit
Le Sauveur de la terre est né
C'est à nous que Dieu l'a donné
Célébrons ses louanges
Gloire au Verbe incarné

1791 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 35, composer, in Vienna, Austria, probably of trichinosis from pork cutlets (according to Jan V. Hirschmann MD, Archives of Internal Medicine 11 June 2001)

1784 Phillis Wheatley, 32, and her child, in Boston.
      Born in Senegal, the future poet was sold into slavery and transported to Boston at age 7 or 8. Purchased off the slave ship by prosperous merchant John Wheatley and his wife Suzanna in 1761, the young girl was soon trying to write English letters with charcoal on fences and walls. The Wheatleys' daughter Mary tutored Phillis in reading and writing. She also studied English literature, Latin, and the Bible. Phillis Wheatley's first published poem was On the Death of the Reverend George Whitefield (1770)
      Manumitted by the Wheatley family, the poet sailed to London in 1773. She met many influential people, including the Lord Mayor of London who presented her with a copy of Milton's Paradise Lost.
      Learning of Mrs. Wheatley's ill-health, Phillis Wheatley returned to Boston prior to the 01 September appearance in London of Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, the first book of poetry by an African-American. Arriving in Boston in September 1773, she nursed her mistress until Suzanna Wheatley died the following March. Wheatley continued to write. In 1776, she sent her poem To his Excellency General Washington. Phillis Wheatley continued to live with various members of the Wheatley family until 1778.
      After the death of John Wheatley and his daughter, Phillis moved to her own home. She soon married John Peters who squandered her inheritance from the Wheatley family. She bore the frequently-absent Peters three children. Beset with financial problems, she sold her volume of Milton to help pay his debts. To support herself and her only surviving child, Phillis Wheatley worked in a Boston boarding house. Both the poet and her child died there on December 5, 1784.
ONLINE:

Memoir and Poems of Phillis Wheatley, a Native African and Slave,

Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral,

Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral

An Elegy, Sacred to the Memory of the Great Divine, the Reverend and Learned Dr. Samuel Cooper, Who Departed This Life December 29, 1783

1770 Stirling, mathematician.
1594 Gerardus Mercator geographer — cartógrafo y matemático holandés.
1560 Francis II, 16, King of France (1559-60)
1349 Jews are massacred at Nuremberg in Black Death riots
1082 Ramón Berenguer II, conde de Barcelonaasesinado.

Births which occurred on a December 05: ^top^
1977 The Plymouth Horizon car is introduced. It is the first American-made small car with front-wheel drive. Technical advances in drive technology had reduced the size and cost of front-wheel drive systems.
1960 La madriguera, de Ricardo Rodríguez Buded, se estrena, galardonada con el Premio Universitario de Teatro.

1955 The AFL-CIO labor organization is founded         ^top^
      The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), a federation of autonomous trade unions in the US, Canada, and Mexico, is formed following the merger of the AFL and the CIO. The American Federation of Labor (AFL) was founded in 1886 by Samuel Gompers, an English-born American labor leader. Under Gompers and his successors, the AFL secured higher wages, shorter hours, child labor laws, and workers' compensation.
      In 1938, a faction of the AFL calling for the organization of workers in specific industries broke off from their parent organization and formed the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). In 1955, the two organizations, concerned with the anti-union policies of Republican president Dwight D. Eisenhower, reunited and elected AFL president George Meany president of the powerful new labor federation.

1941 The Sea of Cortez, biology book by Steinbeck, is published ^top^
John Steinbeck's nonfiction book The Sea of Cortez is published. The book reflects Steinbeck's serious study of marine biology. He also uses his knowledge of the sea and its creatures in creating Doc, the marine biologist character in Cannery Row (1945). Steinbeck was born and raised in California's Salinas Valley, where his father was a county official and his mother a former schoolteacher. Steinbeck was a good student and president of his senior class in high school. He attended Stanford intermittently between 1920 and 1925, then moved to New York City, where he worked as a manual laborer and a journalist while writing stories and novels. His first two novels were not successful. He married Carol Henning (whom he later divorced) and moved to Pacific Grove in 1930, where his father gave him a house and a small income while he continued to write.
His third novel, Tortilla Flat (1935), was a critical and financial success, as were subsequent novels In Dubious Battle (1935) and Of Mice and Men (1937), both of which offered social commentaries on injustices of various types. His 1939 novel, The Grapes of Wrath, won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. His work after World War II, including Cannery Row and The Pearl, continued to offer social criticism but became more sentimental. Steinbeck tried his hand at movie scripts in the 1940s, writing successful films like Forgotten Village (1941) and Viva Zapata (1952). His book Travels with Charlie (1962) describes his travels across the United States in a camper truck with his poodle, Charlie, and his encounters with a fragmented America. Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize in 1962 and died in New York in 1968.

1935 Calvin Trillin author (New Yorker)
1934 Joan Didion US writer (Salvador)
1932 Sheldon Lee Glashow, físico estadounidense.

1932 Model C car and V-8 engine introduced by Ford ^top^
The first Ford Model C automobile was introduced on this day in 1932. It boasted the first four-cylinder engine made by Ford with a counter-balanced crankshaft. The Model C was largely eclipsed, however, by Ford's other 1932 offering: the Ford V-8. The V-8 was the first eight-cylinder Ford automobile, and boasted the first V-8 engine block ever cast in a single piece. The V-8 sold well, but Ford's fortunes had fallen from their peak. The one-time industry giant was trailing GM and Chrysler in sales.

1927 King Bhumibol Adulyadej Rama IX of Thailand (1950- )
1915 La muerte del cisne, del poeta mexicano Enrique González Martínez, se publica, considerado un manifiesto contra la poesía modernista.
1909 Naimark, mathematician.
1903 Cecil Frank Powell England, physicist, discovered pion (Nobel 1950)
1902 James Strom Thurmond (Sen-D/R-SC) US politician, a prominent states' rights and segregation advocate who ran for the presidency in 1948 on the "Dixiecrat" (States' Rights Democratic Party) ticket and he was first elected to the US Senate in 1954. In 2000 [photo >], he would become the US Senator who served the longest in US history. In 1964 he switched from Democrat to Republican. He would retire at the 2002 end of his 8th term in the US Senate, after being the first US Senator to reach his 100th birthday.
1901 Walter Elias “Walt” Disney Chicago, cartoonist, producer: Mickey Mouse, Disneyland, Walt Disney World, feature films, animation. He died on 15 December 1966.
1901 Werner Heisenberg, mathematician and physicist (the uncertainty principle)(Nobel 1932) who said "An expert is someone who knows some of the worst mistakes that can be made in his subject, and how to avoid them". He died in 1976.
1901 Robert Jemison van der Graaff, ingeniero y físico estadounidense
1894 Phillip K. Wrigley (corporate executive: Wrigley Gum)
1890 David Bomberg, British painter who died on 19 August 1957. — MORE ON BOMBERG AT ART “4” DECEMBER — LINKS — The Mud Bath — // — From the booklet Russian Ballet (1919): Image 3 — Image 6 — Image 2 — Image 4 — Image 1 — Image 5 //—
1876 First practical pipe wrench is patented by Daniel Stillson (Mass)
1868 Sommerfeld, mathematician — Arnold Johannes Wilhelm Sommerfeld, físico alemán.
1863 Paul Painlevé, French Prime Minister (1917, 1925), mathematician — matemático, ingeniero aeronáutico y político francés.
1849 Rafael Reyes Prieto, militar y político colombiano.

1839 George Armstrong Custer
     He would become a US general, and one of the worst perpetrator of war crimes against Amerindians, and end up getting what he deserved at Little Big Horn
     George Armstrong Custer is born in Harrison County, Ohio. Although he is best known for his demise at the hands of the Lakota and Cheyenne Indians at the Battle of the Little Big Horn in 1876, Custer built a reputation as a dashing and effective cavalry leader during the US Civil War.
      Custer entered West Point in 1857, where he earned low grades and numerous demerits for his mischievous behavior. He graduated last in the class of 1861. Despite his poor academic showing, Custer did not have to wait long to see military action. Less than two months after leaving West Point, Custer fought in the First Battle of Bull Run in July 1861.
      Custer served the entire Civil War in the Army of the Potomac. He was present for nearly all of the army's major battles, and Custer became, at age 23, the youngest general in the Union army in June 1863. He led the Michigan cavalry brigade in General Judson Kilpatrick's 3rd Cavalry Division. Less than a week after his promotion, Custer and his "Wolverines" played a key role in stopping Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart's cavalry attack, which helped preserve the Union victory at Gettysburg. As a leader, Custer earned the respect of his men because he personally led every charge in battle. Wrote one man of Custer's command, "So brave a man I never saw and as competent as brave. Under him a man is ashamed to be cowardly. Under him our men can achieve wonders."
      Custer achieved his greatest battlefield success in the campaigns of 1864. At Yellow Tavern on 11 May 1864, Custer led the charge that resulted in the death of Stuart. One month later at Trevalian Station, Custer's command attacked a supply train before being surrounded by Confederate cavalry. His men formed a triangle and bravely held off the Rebels until help arrived. In October, Custer's men scored a decisive victory over the Confederate cavalry at Tom's Brook in the Shenandoah Valley, the most one-sided Yankee cavalry victory of the war in the East.
      Custer was demoted to Lieutenant Colonel in the downsizing that took place after the war ended. He was much less effective in his postwar assignments fighting Indians, and his reckless assault on the camp at Little Big Horn on 25 June 1876, earned him an unsavory reputation that overshadowed his earlier success in the Civil War.

1830 Christina Rossetti London, poet (Winter Rain, Passing Away). ROSSETTI ONLINE: Goblin Market, Goblin Market, Sing-Song: A Nursery Rhyme Book.
1782 Martin Van Buren, Kinderhook NY, (D) 8th US President (1837-41) (first native-born)
1590 Daniel Seghers “le Jésuite d'Anvers”, Flemish painter who died on 02 November 1661. — MORE ON SEGHERS AT ART “4” DECEMBER — LINKS — Floral Wreath with Madonna and Child
1443 Giuliano della Rovere, future Pope Julius II (28 Nov 1503 – 20 Feb 1513), patron of Michelangelo, Bramante, Raphael

1360 Le franc est créé.
      À Compiègne, le roi Jean II crée une nouvelle monnaie, le «franc», de même valeur que la monnaie existante, la livre tournois. Surnommé le Bon (c'est-à-dire le Brave), le roi de France rentre de Londres où il a été retenu prisonnier après la désastreuse bataille de Poitiers. Il s'est engagé à verser au roi anglais Edouard III une rançon de trois millions de livres tournois, soit 12,5 tonnes d'or.
      Mais la France est ruinée par la guerre de Cent Ans et pour obtenir une partie de la rançon, Jean a «vendu» sa fille Isabelle contre 600.000 livres au riche duc de Milan, Galéas Visconti. Le roi est enfin libéré contre un premier versement de 400.000 livres. Le nom de la nouvelle monnaie évoque cette libération. «Nous avons été délivré à plein de prison et sommes franc et délivré à toujours», dit le roi dans son ordonnance.
      Pourtant, un peu plus tard, Jean II va revenir à Londres d'où son fils retenu en otage s'est échappé. «Vous avez blêmi l'honneur de votre lignage», lui lance-t-il. C'est en prison que mourra Jean le Bon, le 08 Apr 1364, tandis que son peuple continuera de payer la rançon liée à sa première libération! Le franc sera remis à l'honneur sous la Révolution, le 01 Aug 1793, et deviendra la seule monnaie autorisée en France. Depuis le 01 janvier 1999, il n'est plus qu'une subdivision de l'euro. A partir de 2002, le nom de la monnaie de Jean le Bon ne subsiste plus qu'en Suisse et dans les anciennes colonies françaises.

Holidays Beirut Lebanon : Arbor Day / Haiti : Discovery Day (1492) / Netherlands : St Nicholas' Eve / Thailand : King's Birthday / USSR : Constitution Day (1936)

Religious Observances Ang : Clement of Alexandria, priest / RC : St Sabbas, abbot / Santos Anastasio, Aureliano, Dalmacio, Julio, Sabas, Cristina y Crispina.

DICTIONNAIRE TICRANIEN: souffrir: faire cuire dans une poële pas assez chaude.

Thoughts for the day : “What`s the most popular form of birth control? The headache.”
“What`s the most effective form of birth control? Abstinence.”
“What`s the most moral form of birth control? Self control.”
“Why do they call it birth control when there's no birth and no self control?.”
“What`s the most popular form of headache? Someone else's.”
“What do they call people who practice the rhythm method of birth control? Parents.”
“What`s the most common form of population control? Death.”
“What`s the most popular cause of death? From being much older than you are now.”
“Guns don't kill people, bullets kill people.”
“The ways of mice and men oft' leave cats unimpressed.”
“The grapes of wrath are sour.”
“In dubious battle, he who runs away lives to fight another day.”
“Don't die for your country: make the enemy die for his.”
“Don't ask what your country can do for you, ask what your country can do to you.”
“All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.” — Walt Disney (05 Dec 1901–15 Dec 1966).

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