December 5 in History

The Seven Years' War, 1756 to 1763, was a global war fought by numerous great powers, primarily in Europe, with significant subsidiary campaigns in North America and the Indian subcontinent. The warring states were Great Britain and Prussia fighting against France and Austria, with other countries joining these coalitions: Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and Russia, plus Saxony and many other minor states of the Holy Roman Empire. Related conflicts include the Third Silesian War, French and Indian War, Third Carnatic War, Anglo-Spanish War (1762–1763), and Spanish–Portuguese War. Winston Churchill later famously referred to the conflict as the "First World War" due to its truly global scale, with major campaigns spanning five continents.

The 29th (Worcestershire) Regiment of Foot was an line infantry regiment of the English and British armies raised in 1694. Under the Childers Reforms it was amalgamated with the 36th (Herefordshire) Regiment of Foot to become the 1st Battalion of the Worcestershire Regiment in 1881.

The Phi Beta Kappa Society (ΦΒΚ) is the oldest academic honor society in the United States. Founded in 1776 at the College of William & Mary in Virginia, Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal arts and sciences, and to induct outstanding students of arts and sciences at select American colleges and universities. Since its inception, its inducted members include 17 United States presidents, 42 United States Supreme Court justices, and 136 Nobel laureates.

Jefferson F. Davis was the only president of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1865, leading the Confederacy during the American Civil War. Before the war, he was a member of the Democratic Party who represented Mississippi in the House of Representatives from 1845 to 1846 and in the United States Senate from 1857 to 1861. From 1853 to 1857, he served as the 23rd United States secretary of war during the administration of President Franklin Pierce.

The Chincha Islands War, also known as Spanish–South American War, was a series of coastal and naval battles between Spain and its former colonies of Peru, Chile, Ecuador, and Bolivia from 1865 to 1879. The conflict began with Spain's seizure of the guano-rich Chincha Islands in one of a series of attempts by Spain, under Isabella II, to reassert its influence over its former South American colonies. The war saw the use of ironclads, including the Spanish armoured frigate Numancia, the first ironclad to circumnavigate the world.

The Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–1917 is considered to be the last major expedition of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. Conceived by Sir Ernest Shackleton, the expedition was an attempt to make the first land crossing of the Antarctic continent. After Roald Amundsen's South Pole expedition in 1911, this crossing remained, in Shackleton's words, the "one great main object of Antarctic journeyings". Shackleton's expedition failed to accomplish this objective but became recognised instead as an epic feat of endurance.

The Football Association is the governing body of association football in England and the Crown Dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. Formed in 1863, it is the oldest football association in the world and is responsible for overseeing all aspects of the amateur and professional game in its territory.

The Abyssinia Crisis, also known in Italy as the Walwal incident, was an international crisis in 1935 that originated in a dispute over the town of Walwal, which then turned into a conflict between the Kingdom of Italy and the Ethiopian Empire. The League of Nations ruled against Italy and voted for economic sanctions, but they were never fully applied. Italy ignored the sanctions, quit the League and ultimately annexed and occupied Abyssinia after it had won the Second Italo-Ethiopian War. The crisis is generally regarded as having discredited the League.

The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until its dissolution in 1991. It was the world's third-most populous country, the largest by area, and bordered twelve countries. A diverse multinational state, it was organized as a federal union of national republics, with the largest and most populous being the Russian SFSR. In practice, its government and economy were highly centralized. As a one-party state governed by the Communist Party, it was the flagship communist state. Its capital and largest city was Moscow.

Finland, or the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, opposite Estonia. Its capital and largest city is Helsinki. Finland has a population of 5.7 million. The official languages are Finnish and Swedish, the mother tongues of 83.5 percent and 5.0 percent of the population, respectively. Finland's climate varies from humid continental in the south to boreal in the north. Its land is predominantly covered by boreal forest, with over 180,000 recorded lakes.

Flight 19 was the designation of a group of five Grumman TBF Avenger torpedo bombers that disappeared over the Bermuda Triangle on December 5, 1945, after losing contact during a United States Navy overwater navigation training flight from Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale, Florida. All 14 naval aviators on the flight were lost, as were all 13 crew members of a Martin PBM Mariner that subsequently launched from Naval Air Station Banana River to search for Flight 19.

The American Federation of Labor was a national federation of labor unions in the United States that continues today as the AFL-CIO. It was founded in Columbus, Ohio, in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions eager to provide mutual support and disappointed in the Knights of Labor. Samuel Gompers was elected the full-time president at its founding convention and was re-elected every year except one until his death in 1924. He became the major spokesperson for the union movement.

Subscriber trunk dialling (STD), also known as subscriber toll dialing, is a telephone numbering plan feature and telecommunications technology in the United Kingdom and various Commonwealth countries for the dialling of trunk calls by telephone subscribers without the assistance of switchboard operators.

The Vietnam War was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam and their allies. North Vietnam was supported by the Soviet Union and China, while South Vietnam was supported by the United States and other anti-communist nations. The conflict was the second of the Indochina wars and a proxy war of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and US. The Vietnam War was one of the postcolonial wars of national liberation, a theater in the Cold War, and a civil war, with civil warfare a defining feature from the outset. Direct US military involvement escalated from 1965 until US forces were withdrawn in 1973. The fighting spilled into the Laotian and Cambodian civil wars, which ended with all three countries becoming communist in 1975.

The Battle of Gazipur was a military engagement on 4 and 5 December 1971, during the Bangladesh liberation war. It took place at the Gazipur Tea Estate near Kulaura, in the Sylhet District of what was then East Pakistan. The advancing 4/5 Gorkha Rifles attacked the 22 Baluch Regiment of the Pakistan Army. This battle was a prelude to the Battle of Sylhet.

The National Reorganization Process was the military dictatorship that ruled Argentina from the coup d'état of 24 March 1976 until the transfer of power on 10 December 1983 to a government elected at the 1983 general election. In Argentina it is often known simply as the última junta militar, última dictadura militar, última dictadura cívico-militar, or última dictadura cívico-eclesial-militar —because there have been several in the country's history and no others like it since it ended. In journalism, and more rarely in academic literature, it has sometimes been referred to as totalitarian for its state terrorism mechanisms and an ideology centered around "national integrity", although the more commonly used terms in academia are "authoritarian" and "bureaucratic-authoritarian". Some scholars describe the regime as an example of neo-fascism.

The Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances comprises four substantially identical political agreements signed at the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) in Budapest, Hungary, on 5 December 1994, to provide security assurances by its signatories relating to the accession of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). The four memoranda were originally signed by four nuclear powers: Ukraine, Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom. France and China gave individual assurances in separate documents.

Azerbaijan Airlines Flight A-56 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight operated by Azerbaijan Airlines, from Nakhchivan Airport to Baku, which crashed whilst attempting an emergency landing on 5 December 1995, killing 52 out of the 82 people on board. The twin-engine aircraft operating the flight, a Tupolev Tu-134, experienced an engine failure shortly after take-off, but the second engine that was operable was shut down in error. The pilots attempted a forced landing, which resulted in the aircraft crashing in the south-western outskirts of Nakhchivan, 3.85 km from the airport runway.

The Civil Partnership Act 2004 is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, introduced by the Labour government, which grants civil partnerships in the United Kingdom the rights and responsibilities very similar to those in civil marriage. Initially the act permitted only same-sex couples to form civil partnerships. This was altered to include opposite-sex couples in 2019. Civil partners are entitled to the same property rights as married couples, the same exemption as married couples regarding social security and pension benefits, and also the ability to exercise parental responsibility for a partner's children, as well as responsibility for reasonable maintenance of one's partner and their children, tenancy rights, full life insurance recognition, next-of-kin rights in hospitals, and others. There is a formal process for dissolving civil partnerships, akin to divorce.

Josaia Voreqe "Frank" Bainimarama is a Fijian former politician and naval officer who served as the prime minister of Fiji from 2007 until 2022. A member of the FijiFirst party, which he founded in 2014, he began his career as an officer in the Fijian navy and commander of the Fijian military. Despite being suspended from Parliament, he served as the opposition leader from 24 December 2022 until 8 March 2023, when he resigned and was replaced by Inia Seruiratu.

On 5 December 2013, a coordinated terrorist attack occurred targeting the Ministry of Defense complex in Sanaa, Yemen. Heavily armed militants utilized a car bomb to breach the gates of the complex before storming it and occupying a hospital within it. The attack, which killed 52 people and injured 167, was claimed by Ansar al-Sharia, an affiliate of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). AQAP later issued an apology for the attack after footage from within the hospital was broadcast showing the gunmen murdering medical personnel.