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Explore 5 December

Explore 5 December: the United States ends Prohibition, Shackleton’s Endurance sails for Antarctica, a deadly smog settles over London and Ukraine gives up its nuclear weapons in return for promises of security. Meet Walt Disney, Werner Heisenberg and Christina Rossetti, born on this date.

This day through time →9 verified events across 4 eras

⌛9Full
Timeline ◈4Historic
Moments ♙8Born
Today ✦7Lives
Remembered ◉1Firsts &
Discoveries ☉1Observances
Detroit police inspect equipment from a hidden underground brewery during the Prohibition era.
Detroit police inspect equipment from a hidden underground brewery during the Prohibition era.
Image creditUnknown authorUnknown author or not provided · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
1933

The United States ends Prohibition

On 5 December 1933 conventions in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Utah approved the Twenty-first Amendment to the US Constitution. Utah’s vote made 36 states, the three-quarters needed, and the amendment repealed the Eighteenth, which in 1920 had banned the making, transport and sale of alcoholic drinks across the country.

It remains the only amendment ever to cancel another, and the only one ratified by special state conventions rather than state legislatures. States kept the power to control alcohol within their borders, and some stayed ‘dry’ for years.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Constitution Annotated, Congress.gov (Library of Congress): Ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment ↗
Endurance under sail, trying to break through the pack ice of the Weddell Sea in 1915. Photograph by Frank Hurley.
Endurance under sail, trying to break through the pack ice of the Weddell Sea in 1915. Photograph by Frank Hurley.
Image creditFrank Hurley · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
1914

Shackleton’s Endurance sails for Antarctica

On 5 December 1914 Ernest Shackleton’s ship Endurance left the whaling station at Grytviken on South Georgia and headed south into the Weddell Sea. The Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition aimed to make the first crossing of the Antarctic continent on foot.

In January 1915 the ship was caught fast in the pack ice, and later that year it was crushed and sank. Shackleton’s men survived months on the drifting ice and a voyage to Elephant Island, and in 1916 he sailed a small boat to South Georgia to fetch help. Every man of Endurance’s crew came home.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge: Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition 1914-16 ↗
Nelson's Column in the fog of December 1952.
Nelson’s Column in the fog of December 1952.
Image creditN T Stobbs · CC BY-SA 2.0Resized and cropped for display.
1952

The Great Smog descends on London

On 5 December 1952 cold, still air trapped the smoke from London’s coal fires, factories and power stations close to the ground. For five days a thick yellow-black smog lay over the city, so dense in places that people could not see their own feet.

About 4,000 more people died than usual within days, and later research puts the total at around 12,000. The disaster led Parliament to pass the Clean Air Act of 1956, which created smoke-free zones and moved homes and industry towards cleaner fuels.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Met Office: The Great Smog of 1952 ↗
Bill Clinton, Boris Yeltsin and Leonid Kravchuk after signing the Trilateral Statement on Ukraine's nuclear weapons in Moscow, 14 January 1994, the agreement that led to the Budapest memorandum.
Bill Clinton, Boris Yeltsin and Leonid Kravchuk after signing the Trilateral Statement on Ukraine’s nuclear weapons in Moscow, 14 January 1994, the agreement that led to the Budapest memorandum.
Image creditU.S. government employee, photo from William J. Clinton Presidential Library · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
1994

Ukraine gives up the bomb

When the Soviet Union broke up, Ukraine was left with thousands of nuclear weapons. On 5 December 1994, at a summit in Budapest, it joined the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as a state without nuclear weapons, and the United States, Russia and the United Kingdom signed a memorandum of security assurances in return.

They promised to respect Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty and existing borders and not to threaten or use force against it. The memorandum was a political commitment rather than a treaty, with no means of enforcement, and after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 Ukraine, the United States and Britain said it had been breached.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: United Nations Treaty Collection: Memorandum on security assurances in connection with Ukraine’s accession to the NPT ↗
♙
PEOPLE

Born Today

Martin Van Buren
Image creditMathew Benjamin Brady · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
Born 1782

Martin Van Buren

Eighth president of the United States, the first born a citizen of the United States rather than a British subject.

Christina Rossetti
Image creditDante Gabriel Rossetti · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
Born 1830

Christina Rossetti

English poet of Goblin Market and the carol In the Bleak Midwinter.

Walt Disney
Image creditBoy Scouts of America · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
Born 1901

Walt Disney

American animation pioneer who created Mickey Mouse and founded the Disney studio.

Werner Heisenberg
Image creditUnknown authorUnknown author · CC BY-SA 3.0 deResized and cropped for display.
Born 1901

Werner Heisenberg

German physicist, a founder of quantum mechanics, known for the uncertainty principle; Nobel Prize, 1932.

Bhumibol Adulyadej
Image creditHarry Pot / Anefo · CC0Resized and cropped for display.
Born 1927

Bhumibol Adulyadej

King of Thailand for seventy years, from 1946 until his death in 2016.

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IDEAS THAT CHANGED THINGS

Firsts, Science & Discoveries

A Delta IV Heavy rocket lifts off from Cape Canaveral carrying the Orion spacecraft on its first flight, 5 December 2014.
A Delta IV Heavy rocket lifts off from Cape Canaveral carrying the Orion spacecraft on its first flight, 5 December 2014.
Image creditNASA/Tim Terry · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
2014

Orion makes its first flight

At 7.05 am on 5 December 2014 a Delta IV Heavy rocket launched NASA’s new Orion crew capsule, uncrewed, from Cape Canaveral. In a flight of four and a half hours it circled the Earth twice, climbing to about 5,800 km, far higher than any spacecraft built for people had gone since the Apollo era.

It then plunged back through the atmosphere to test its heat shield and splashed down in the Pacific off California. Orion is the capsule of NASA’s Artemis programme to return astronauts to the Moon.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: NASA: Exploration Flight Test-1 ↗
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LIVES REMEMBERED

Remembered Today

Alexandre Dumas
Image creditNadar · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
Died 1870

Alexandre Dumas

French novelist of The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo.

Claude Monet
Image creditNadar · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
Died 1926

Claude Monet

French painter, founder of Impressionism, famous for his water lilies.

☉
AROUND THE WORLD

Observances & Anniversaries

King Bhumibol Adulyadej on a state visit to the Netherlands in 1960.
King Bhumibol Adulyadej on a state visit to the Netherlands in 1960.
Image creditHarry Pot / Anefo · CC0Resized and cropped for display.
Annual

National Day and Father’s Day in Thailand

The birthday of the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who reigned from 1946 to 2016 and was honoured as the father of the nation, is kept in Thailand as National Day and Father’s Day, with alms-giving, religious ceremonies and tributes to him.

Source: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Thailand: Celebration of the birthday anniversary of King Bhumibol Adulyadej the Great, National Day and Father’s Day ↗
HISTORY & TIMELINE

Finished the highlights?

Follow 5 December chronologically, from the Middle Ages to the modern day, with 9 verified events and the sources behind them.

This day through time →
Sources & further reading