Today in History - History - December 5th

1847Jefferson Davis is elected to the US senate, his first political post.

198156th Australian Women Tennis: Navratilova beats Chris Evert (67 64 75)

1967Benjamin Spock & Allen Ginsberg arrested protesting against Vietnam war

1832Andrew Jackson re-elected President of US

1804Thomas Jefferson re-elected US President, George Clinton Vice President

63 BCCicero reads the last of his Catiline Orations.

1978Free agent Pete Rose signs 4-year, $32 million contract with Phillies becoming highest paid baseball player

1949Ezzard Charles defeats Jersey Joe Walcott for heavyweight boxing title

1958Subscriber Trunk Dialling (STD) is inaugurated in the UK by Queen Elizabeth II when she speaks to the Lord Provost in a call from Bristol to Edinburgh.

1840Napoleon Bonaparte receives a french state funeral in Paris 19 years after his death

1901Walter Elias disney, Chicago, animator (Mickey Mouse), (d. 1966)

1443Pope Julius II, Albisola, Republic of Genoa, Pope (1503-13), patron of Michelangelo, Bramante, Raphael, (d. 1513)

1903Cecil Frank Powell, Tonbridge, Kent, physicist, discovered pion (Nobel 1950), (d.1969)

1839George Armstrong Custer, New Rumley, Ohio, Mjr General (Union volunteers), (d. 1876)

1859John Rushworth Jellicoe, 1st Earl Jellicoe, British Admiral of the Fleet, Southampton

1782Martin Van Buren, Kinderhook New York, (D) 8th US president (1837-41)

2003Cold play band lead vocalist Chris Martin (35) weds actress and singer Gwyneth Paltrow (39) at the San Ysidro Ranch in Montecito, California

1926Gangster Carlo Gambino (24) weds his first cousin Catherine Castellano

1965Joseph Erlanger, American physiologist, Nobel laureate for shock therapy (b. 1874)

2002Roone Arledge, American sports broadcasting pioneer, dies of prostate cancer at 71

1926Claude Monet, French impressionist, dies at 86

1870Alexandre Dumas, French writer, dies at 68

2013Nelson Mandela, anti-apartheid activist, political prisoner (1962-1990) and South African President (1994-99) dies of a lung infection at 95

1784Phillis Wheatley, American poet and first published African-American woman, dies in Boston at 31