Dec. 5 history: Prohibition ends

Dec. 5 history

In 1776, in Williamsburg, Virginia, a group of five students at the College of William and Mary gather at Raleigh’s Tavern to found a new fraternity, Phi Beta Kappa. 

In 1791, composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died in Vienna, Austria, at age 35.

In 1792, George Washington was re-elected president; John Adams was re-elected vice president.

In 1848, President James K. Polk triggered the Gold Rush of ’49 by confirming that gold had been discovered in California.

In 1932, German physicist Albert Einstein was granted a visa, making it possible for him to travel to the United States.

In 1933, national Prohibition came to an end as Utah became the 36th state to ratify the 21st Amendment to the Constitution, repealing the 18th Amendment. 

In 1945, five Navy torpedo-bombers take off from the Ft. Lauderdale Naval Air Station in Florida on a routine 3-hour training mission (across the Bermuda Triangle). After having completed their objective, Flight 19 was scheduled to take them due east for an additional 67 miles. They never returned.

In 1955, the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations merged to form the AFL-CIO under its first president, George Meany. 

In 1955, The Montgomery (Ala.) Bus Boycott began. Most of the 50,000 Black workers living in the city supported the boycott - after Rosa Park's arrest - by walking, bicycling and car-pooling. The boycott was organized by the local chapter of the NAACP led by Pullman porter E. D. Edgar Nixon. 

In 1994, Republicans chose Newt Gingrich to be the first GOP speaker of the House in four decades.

In 2012, Jazz composer and pianist Dave Brubeck died in Norwalk, Connecticut, a day before he would have turned 92. 

 In 2013, Nelson Mandela, the anti-apartheid leader who became South Africa’s first Black president, died at age 95. 

In 2017, Democratic congressman John Conyers of Michigan resigned from Congress after a nearly 53-year career, becoming the first Capitol Hill politician to lose his job amid the sexual misconduct allegations sweeping through the nation’s workplaces.

In 2018, former President George H.W. Bush was mourned at a memorial service at Washington National Cathedral attended by President Donald Trump and former Presidents Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter along with their spouses; former president George W. Bush was among the speakers.

In 2019, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that she had asked relevant House committee chairs to begin drawing up articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump.

In 2021, Bob Dole, who overcame disabling war wounds to become a Senate leader from Kansas, a Republican presidential candidate and then a symbol of his dwindling generation of World War II veterans, died at age 98. (History.com 12/05/23)