History of the Day for:
December 5
- 1492: Columbus discovered Hispaniola (Haiti).
- 1766: London auctioneers Christie's held their first sale.
- 1776: The first U.S. Greek-letter scholastic fraternity, Phi Beta Kappa, was founded at the William and Mary College in Williamsburg, Va.
- 1782: Martin Van Buren, eighth president of the United States, (1837-41), was born.
- 1791: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Austrian composer and performer, died under mysterious circumstances.
- 1792: George Washington was re-elected president of the United States; John Adams was re-elected vice president.
- 1848: President James Polk triggered the Gold Rush of '49 by confirming that gold had been discovered in California.
- 1854: Aaron Allen of Boston patented a folding theater chair.
- 1868: The first American bicycle school opened in New York City.
- 1893: The first electric car hit the streets, built by a Toronto firm. It could go 15 miles between charges.
- 1901: Walt Disney, film producer and animation pioneer, was born.
- 1908: Numerals were first used on football uniforms worn by college football players in a game between the University of Pittsburgh and Washington and Jefferson.
- 1926: "Battleship Potemkin," Sergei Eisenstein's famous film about a mutiny on a Russian ship, debuted.
- 1929: The first nudist organization in the U.S., the American League for Physical Culture, opened in New York City.
- 1932: German physicist Albert Einstein was granted a visa, making it possible for him to travel to the United States.
- 1933: The 21st Amendment of the U.S. Constitution was ratified, thus ending Prohibition.
- 1945: The "Lost Squadron," five U.S. Navy Avenger bombers carrying 14 Navy flyers, took off on a training mission from the Fort Lauderdale Naval Air Station and were never seen again. They were popularly believed to have vanished in the Bermuda Triangle.
- 1955: The American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations joined to form the AFL-CIO.
- 1955: The black community of Montgomery, Ala., launched its boycott of the city's bus system in response to the arrest of Rosa Parks, who refused to give up her seat for a white man.
- 1957: New York City became the first city to legislate against racial or religious discrimination in the housing market.
- 1973: Chicago Cubs' Ron Santo became the first baseball player to veto his trade.
- 1974: "Monty Python's Flying Circus" was last shown on BBC.
- 1988: A federal grand jury in North Carolina indicted PTL founder Jim Bakker on fraud and conspiracy charges.
- 1990: British author Salman Rushdie, who had been in hiding since Iran ordered his death for blasphemy, appeared in public for the first time for nearly two years.
- 1991: Richard Speck, who murdered eight student nurses in Chicago in 1966, died in prison one day short of his 50th birthday.
- 1996: Portland's Jermaine O'Neal, 18, became the youngest player ever to participate in an NBA game.
- 2005: The Lake Tanganyika earthquake causes significant damage, mostly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
- 2005: The Civil Partnership Act comes into effect in the United Kingdom, and the first civil partnership is registered there.
- 2006: Commodore Frank Bainimarama overthrows the government in Fiji.
- 2007: Westroads Mall massacre: A gunman opens fire with a semi-automatic rifle at an Omaha, Nebraska mall, killing eight people before taking his own life.
- 2008: Human remains previously found in 1991 are finally identified by Russian and American scientists as those of Tsar Nicholas II.