📜 This Day in History

December 5

• 1456The first of two major earthquakes struck the Kingdom of Naples, killing up to 70,000 people.
• 1757Seven Years' War: Prussian troops under Frederick the Great defeated Austrian forces at the Battle of Leuthen.
• 1914The Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition began in an attempt to make the first land crossing of Antarctica.
• 1936The 1936 Soviet constitution, also known as the "Stalin constitution", was adopted.
• 1965The "glasnost meeting" took place in Moscow, becoming the first demonstration in the Soviet Union after World War II and marking the beginning of the civil rights movement in the country.
• 2007A gunman killed nine people at a shopping mall in Omaha, Nebraska.

Born on this day

• 1782Martin Van Buren, American lawyer and politician, 8th President of the United States (died 1862)
• 1901Walt Disney, American animator, director, producer, and screenwriter, co-founded The Walt Disney Company (died 1966)
• 1901Werner Heisenberg, German physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1976)
• 1927Bhumibol Adulyadej, King of Thailand (died 2016)