December 5
This day in history:
- 1958 – The Preston By-pass, the UK's first stretch of motorway, opens to traffic for the first time. (It is now part of the M6 and M55 motorways.)
- 1936 – The Soviet Union adopts a new constitution and the Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic is established as a full Union Republic of the USSR.
- 1994 – The Budapest Memorandum is signed at the OSCE conference in Budapest, Hungary.
- 1995 – Sri Lankan Civil War: Sri Lanka's government announces the conquest of the Tamil stronghold of Jaffna.
Births:
- 1905 – Francisco Javier Arana, Guatemalan Army colonel and briefly Guatemalan head of state (d. 1949)
- 1979 – Matteo Ferrari, Italian footballer
- 1946 – José Carreras, Spanish tenor and actor
Deaths:
- 2001 – Franco Rasetti, Italian-American physicist and academic (b. 1901)
- 334 – Li Ban, emperor of Cheng Han (b. 288)
- 2013 – William B. Edmondson, American lawyer and diplomat, United States Ambassador to South Africa (b. 1927)
Holidays:
- World Soil Day
- Children's Day (Suriname)
- Klozum (Schiermonnikoog, Netherlands)
Random Article of the day:
Camberwell Grove