MILESFORTIS

December 5

1408 – The Mongolian Golden Horde, under Edigu Khan, reaches and besieges Moscow.

1578 – On his voyage of circumnavigation, Sir Francis Drake, sails through Strait of Magellan the raids Valparaiso.

1766 – In London, auctioneer James Christie holds his first sale.

1770 – At trial, among others charged with Murder, British 29th Regiment of Foot Privates Hugh Montgomery and Matthew Kilroy, who, defended by John Adams and Josiah Quincy II, assisted by Sampson Blowers and Paul Revere, are the only soldiers found guilty for the lesser charge of Manslaughter of Crispus Attucks and Samuel Gray in the ‘Boston Massacre’. Pleading Benefit of Clergy, the right to a lesser sentence for a first offender, their punishment is to be branded on the thumb.

1775 – At Fort Ticonderoga, New York, troops under Henry Knox begins transport of artillery to Cambridge, Massachusetts.

1776 – Phi Beta Kappa, the oldest academic honor society in the U.S., holds its first meeting at the College of William & Mary, in Williamsburg, Virginia

1791 – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart dies, age 35, at his home in Vienna, Austria.

1831 –Defeated for re-election as President by Andrew Jackson in the election of 1828, but elected as a Congressional Representative for Massachusetts in the election of 1830, former President John Quincy Adams takes his seat in the House of Representatives, where he serves for 8 terms.

1848 – In a message to Congress, President Polk confirms that large amounts of gold had been discovered in California.

1933 – The 21st Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, repealing the 18th Amendment authorizing prohibition.

1945 – U.S. Navy Flight 19, a group of 5 Avenger bombers on a training flight, disappears in the Bermuda Triangle.

1955 – 20 years after breaking away, the members of the Congress of Industrial Organizations remerge with the American Federation of Labor and form the AFL–CIO.

1964 – For heroism in battle against a much larger force of Viet Cong earlier in the year, U.S. Army Captain Roger Donlon, commanding officer of a Special Forces camp at Nam Dong, is awarded the first Medal of Honor of the Vietnam War.

2007 – 19 year old Robert A. Hawkins kills 8 people and wounds 4 before killing himself at a Von Maur department store, Westroads Mall, in Omaha, Nebraska

2014 – Exploration Flight Test 1, the first flight test of the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

2021 – World War II veteran and retired Senator Robert Dole, dies, age 98 at his home in Washington D.C.

2022 – Actress Kirstie Alley, dies, age 71 at her home in Clearwater Florida.

December 4

530 BC – Cyrus the Great of Persia, noted in the Old Testament for ordering the return of the Jews to Israel, and authorizing the building of the Second Temple, dies in battle near the headwaters of the Jaxartes river in Central Asia.

771 – King Carloman dies, leaving his brother Charlemagne, sole King of the Franks.

1110 – During the 1st Crusade, the Fatimid caliphate ruled city of Sidon is captured by the forces of Baldwin I of Jerusalem, Sigurd I of Norway and Ordelafo Faliero, Doge of Venice.

1619 – Aboard the ship Margaret, 38 English colonists arrive at Berkeley Hundred on the north bank of the James River near Herring Creek in Virginia Colony.

1783 – A week after British forces have evacuated New York City at the end of the Revolution, Fraunces Tavern puts on a victory dinner for General Washington, where he bids farewell to his officers of the Continental Army

1786 – Mission Santa Barbara – later expanding to become Santa Barbera California – is dedicated on the feast day of Saint Barbara by Fermín Lasuén of the Franciscan order.

1804 – The House of Representatives adopts articles of impeachment for ‘partisan decisions’ against Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase.

1861 – The Electors of the several states of the Confederate States of America unanimously elect Jefferson Davis as President and Alexander H. Stephens as Vice President.

1865 – North Carolina ratifies the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

1867 – Former Minnesota farmer Oliver Hudson Kelley founds the Order of the Patrons of Husbandry, known today as The Grange.

1872 – The crewless American brigantine Mary Celeste, drifting in the Atlantic, is discovered by the Canadian brig Dei Gratia. Her master Benjamin Briggs and all 9 others known to have been on board are never accounted for.

1881 – The first edition of the Los Angeles Times is published.

1918 – President Wilson becomes the first U.S. president to travel to Europe while in office, sailing for the World War I peace talks in Versailles, France.

1942 – On Guadalcanal, the “Long Patrol” of the Marine Corps 2nd Raider Battalion under Colonel Evans Carlson returns from behind the Japanese lines.

1945 – The Senate approves the treaty of U.S. participation in the United Nations.

1950 – During the Korean War, Ensign Jesse L. Brown – the first Black to complete the U. S. Navy’s basic flight training program – is killed in action during the Battle of Chosin Reservoir. In a futile attempt to rescue him, his wingman Lt J.G. Thomas J. Hudner Jr., intentionally crashes his own aircraft nearby, and is later as awarded the Medal of Honor for the effort.

1965 – The Gemini 7 mission with crew members Frank Borman and Jim Lovell launches to later rendezvous with Gemini 6A.
Eastern Air Lines Flight 853, a Lockheed Super Constellation, enroute from Boston Logan International Airport to Newark International Airport, collides in mid-air with Trans World Airlines Flight 42, a Boeing 707, enroute from San Francisco International Airport to John F. Kennedy International Airport, over Carmel, New York. While the Boeing plane is able to land safely at John F. Kennedy International Airport, the Lockheed crash lands in a pasture on Hunt Mountain in North Salem, New York killing 3 of the 51 passengers aboard and the plane’s Captain.

1978 – Following the murder of Mayor George Moscone, City Councilwoman Dianne Feinstein is appointed San Francisco’s first female mayor.

1983 – Responding to an F-14 being fired on by an SA-7 surface to air missile, US Navy aircraft launch from the USS John F. Kennedy and USS Independence to attack Syrian missile sites in Lebanon. An A-6 Intruder and A-7 Corsair are shot down with 1 pilot killed, 1 rescued and 1 captured and held prisoner until early January.

1991 – Terry A. Anderson is released after seven years in captivity as a hostage in Beirut; he is the last and longest held American hostage in Lebanon.

1992 – To provide increased support for U.N. UNISOM humanitarian relief efforts for civilians during the Somali Civil War, President Bush orders 28,000 additional U.S. troops to Somalia.

1998 – The Unity Module, the second module of the International Space Station, is launched.

2017 – The Thomas Fire starts near Santa Paula, California, burning 440 square miles of land in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, the largest wildfire to date in modern California history.

December 3

1586 – Sir Thomas Herriot introduces potatoes to England from Colombia

1736 – Swedish Astronomer Anders Celsius takes measurements that confirm Newton’s theory that the earth is an ellipsoid rather than the previously accepted sphere

1775 – Purchased by the Continental Congress on November 4th for the Continental Navy, USS Alfred, after fitting out, becomes the first vessel to fly Continental Colors, the first national flag of the United States, hoisted by Lieutenant John Paul Jones.

1800 – In the presidential election, the Electoral College casts votes for president and vice president that result in a tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr 35 times until on the 36th ballot, Jefferson is elected due to several Federalist Party Electors changing their vote

1818 – Illinois becomes the 21st U.S. state.

1901 – In a State of the Union message, U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt delivers a 20,000-word speech to the House of Representatives asking Congress to curb the power of corporate trusts – at the time how large businesses were organized.

1904 – The Jupiter moon Himalia is discovered by Charles Dillon Perrine in photographs taken with the Crossley 36 inch reflector of the Lick Observatory on Mount Hamilton, at the University of California, San Jose.

1912 – Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro, and Serbia -the Balkan League – sign an armistice with the Ottoman Empire, temporarily halting the First Balkan War. The armistice is not renewed and expires on February 3, 1913, with  hostilities resuming.

1929 – President Herbert Hoover delivers his first State of the Union message to Congress. It is presented in the form of a written message rather than a speech.

1938 – Nazi Germany issues the Decree on the Utilization of Jewish Property forcing Jews to sell real property, businesses, and stocks at below market value as part of Aryanization.

1960 – The musical Camelot debuts at the Majestic Theatre on Broadway starring, Richard Burton, Julie Andrews and Robert Goulet.

1967 – At Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa, a transplant team headed by Christiaan Barnard carries out the first human to human heart transplant from 25 year old Denise Darvall, killed in a traffic accident, to 53 year old Louis Washkansky, who survives until the 21st of the month.

1973 – NASA’s Space probe Pioneer 10 sends back the first close up images of Jupiter.

1979 – Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini becomes the first Supreme Leader of Iran.

1984 – A methyl isocyanate leak from a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, kills more than 3,800 people and injures another 150,000–600,000.

1989 – In a meeting off the coast of Malta, President Bush and Soviet leader  Gorbachev release statements indicating that the Cold War between NATO and the Warsaw Pact may be coming to an end.

1992 – A test engineer for Sema Group uses a personal computer to send the world’s first text message via the Vodafone network to the phone of a colleague.

1999 – NASA loses radio contact with the Mars Polar Lander moments before the spacecraft enters the Martian atmosphere.

2005 – Dick Rutan pilots the XCOR Aerospace rocket powered Long-EZ aircraft, making the first manned rocket aircraft delivery of U.S. Mail from the Mojave post office to California City, California.

2007 – Winter storms cause the Chehalis River to flood many cities in Lewis County, Washington, and close a 20 mile stretch of Interstate 5 highway for several days. At least 8 deaths are blamed on the floods.

2019 – Kamala Harris ends her campaign to be the 2020 Democratic candidate for president even before the first primary election is held.

2022 – A targeted attack on 2 electric substations in North Carolina causes a blackout for 40,000 residents in the area