What happend on 5th December

04.12
06.12
1941

The nonfiction book Sea of Cortez by John Steinbeck is published (Steinbeck used knowledge gained writing this book to develop the marine biologist character Doc in Cannery Row).

1936

The Soviet Union adopts a new constitution.

1934

Italian troops attack Wal Wal in Ethiopia (it took four days to capture the city).

1933

Prohibition ends: Utah becomes the 36th U.S. state to ratify the Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution, thus establishing the required 3/4th of states needed to enact the amendment (this overturned the 18th Amendment which had outlawed alcohol in the United States).

1932

German physicist Albert Einstein granted a visa

1926

Sergei Eisenstein's "Battleship Potemkin," debuts

1873

In Boston, Massachusetts, Warren Avenue Baptist Church sexton Thomas Piper strangles and beats to death his first victim, Bridget Landregan (the press later dubbed the then unknown serial killer "The Boston Belfry Murderer").

1848

California gold rush: In a message before the U.S. Congress, US President James K. Polk confirms that large amounts of gold had been discovered in California.

1831

Former US President John Quincy Adams takes a seat in the United States House of Representatives.

1776

At the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, the Phi Beta Kappa is founded as the first scholastic fraternity in the United States.