Today is December 5 2014

National Sacher Torte Day: More
National Comfort Food Day: More

• Repeal Day: More
  
• International Volunteer Day: More
  U.N. recognition day.
• International Ninja Day: More
• National Salesperson Day:: More
• World Soil Day: More
• International Sweater Vestival: More

• In 1848, President Polk triggers the Gold Rush of 1849 by confirming the discovery of gold in California.
  From Wikipedia: 'The California Gold Rush began at Sutter's Mill, near Coloma. On January 24, 1848, James W. Marshall, a foreman working for Sacramento pioneer John Sutter, found shiny metal in the tailrace of a lumber mill Marshall was building for Sutter on the American River. Marshall brought what he found to John Sutter, and the two privately tested the metal. After the tests showed that it was gold, Sutter expressed dismay: he wanted to keep the news quiet because he feared what would happen to his plans for an agricultural empire if there were a mass search for gold.
  
  However, rumors soon started to spread and were confirmed in March 1848 by San Francisco newspaper publisher and merchant Samuel Brannan. The most famous quote of the California Gold Rush was by Brannan; after he had hurriedly set up a store to sell gold prospecting supplies, Brannan strode through the streets of San Francisco, holding aloft a vial of gold, shouting "Gold! Gold! Gold from the American River!"
  
  On August 19, 1848, the New York Herald was the first major newspaper on the East Coast to report the discovery of gold. On December 5, 1848, President James Polk confirmed the discovery of gold in an address to Congress. Soon, waves of immigrants from around the world, later called the "forty-niners," invaded the Gold Country of California or "Mother Lode". As Sutter had feared, he was ruined; his workers left in search of gold, and squatters took over his land and stole his crops and cattle.
  
  San Francisco had been a tiny settlement before the rush began. When residents learned about the discovery, it at first became a ghost town of abandoned ships and businesses, but then boomed as merchants and new people arrived. The population of San Francisco exploded from perhaps about 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 full-time residents by 1850. Miners lived in tents, wood shanties, or deck cabins removed from abandoned ships'.
  - At Wikipedia: More
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• In 1876, Daniel Stillson patents the first adjustable pipe wrench.
  From Wikipedia: 'Daniel Chapman Stillson (March 25, 1826 - August 23, 1899) was an American inventor. He invented the modern adjustable pipe wrench.
  
  He was a machinist during the American Civil War and served on David Glasgow Farragut's first voyage as a vice admiral. At the end of the Civil War, Stillson returned to Charlestown, Massachusetts, and eventually he moved to Somerville, Massachusetts. He then worked as a machinist at the J. J. Walworth Company in the Cambridgeport section of Cambridge, Massachusetts. While at the J. J. Walworth Company, he developed his pipe wrench. On September 13, 1870, he was issued his patent. Stillson was paid about $80,000 in royalties during his lifetime.
  
  He died on August 23, 1899, and is buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge and Watertown, Massachusetts'.
  - At Wikipedia: More
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• In 1893, The first appearance of an electric car is made in Canada by William Still. It ran about 15 miles on a charge. Better performance and distance gasoline powered autos greatly reduced it's popularity.
  From Wikipedia: 'Electric vehicles first appeared in the mid-19th century. An electric vehicle held the vehicular land speed record until around 1900. The high cost, low top speed, and short range of battery electric vehicles, compared to later internal combustion engine vehicles, led to a worldwide decline in their use; although electric vehicles have continued to be used in the form of electric trains and other niche uses.
  
  At the beginning of the 21st century, interest in electric and other alternative fuel vehicles has increased due to growing concern over the problems associated with hydrocarbon-fueled vehicles, including damage to the environment caused by their emissions, and the sustainability of the current hydrocarbon-based transportation infrastructure as well as improvements in electric vehicle technology. Since 2010, combined sales of all-electric cars and utility vans achieved 1 million units delivered globally in September 2016.
  
  The invention of the first model electric vehicle is attributed to various people. In 1828, Ányos Jedlik, a Hungarian who invented an early type of electric motor, created a small model car powered by his new motor. In 1834, Vermont blacksmith Thomas Davenport built a similar contraption which operated on a short, circular, electrified track. In 1835, Professor Sibrandus Stratingh of Groningen, the Netherlands and his assistant Christopher Becker created a small-scale electrical car, powered by non-rechargeable primary cells. Electric locomotives
  
  The first known electric car was built in 1837 by chemist Robert Davidson of Aberdeen. It was powered by galvanic cells (batteries). Davidson later built a larger locomotive named Galvani, exhibited at the Royal Scottish Society of Arts Exhibition in 1841. The seven-ton vehicle had two direct-drive reluctance motors, with fixed electromagnets acting on iron bars attached to a wooden cylinder on each axle, and simple commutators. It hauled a load of six tons at four miles per hour for a distance of one and a half miles. It was tested on the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway in September of the following year, but the limited power from batteries prevented its general use. It was destroyed by railway workers, who saw it as a threat to their security of employment.
  
  Between 1832 and 1839, British inventor Robert Anderson also invented a crude electrical carriage. A patent for the use of rails as conductors of electric current was granted in England in 1840, and similar patents were issued to Lilley and Colten in the United States in 1847.
  
  Rechargeable batteries that provided a viable means for storing electricity on board a vehicle did not come into being until 1859, with the invention of the lead–acid battery by French physicist Gaston Planté. Camille Alphonse Faure, another French scientist, significantly improved the design of the battery in 1881; his improvements greatly increased the capacity of such batteries and led directly to their manufacture on an industrial scale.
  
  An early electric-powered two-wheel cycle was put on display at the 1867 World Exposition in Paris by the Austrian inventor Franz Kravogl, but it was regarded as a curiosity and could not drive reliably in the street. Another cycle, this time with three wheels, was tested along a Paris street in April 1881 by French inventor Gustave Trouvé
  
  nglish inventor Thomas Parker, who was responsible for innovations such as electrifying the London Underground, overhead tramways in Liverpool and Birmingham, and the smokeless fuel coalite, built the first production electric car in London in 1884, using his own specially designed high-capacity rechargeable batteries. Parker's long-held interest in the construction of more fuel-efficient vehicles led him to experiment with electric vehicles. He also may have been concerned about the malign effects smoke and pollution were having in London.
  
  Production of the car was in the hands of the Elwell-Parker Company, established in 1882 for the construction and sale of electric trams. The company merged with other rivals in 1888 to form the Electric Construction Corporation; this company had a virtual monopoly on the British electric car market in the 1890s. The company manufactured the first electric 'dog cart' in 1896. Flocken Elektrowagen, 1888 (reconstruction, 2011) German electric car, 1904, with the chauffeur on top
  
  s France and the United Kingdom were the first nations to support the widespread development of electric vehicles. The first electric car in Germany was built by the engineer Andreas Flocken in 1888.
  
  The first American electric car was developed in 1890-91 by William Morrison of Des Moines, Iowa; the vehicle was a six-passenger wagon capable of reaching a speed of 14 miles per hour (23 km/h). It was not until 1895 that Americans began to devote attention to electric vehicles, after A.L. Ryker introduced the first electric tricycles to the U.S., by that point, Europeans had been making use of electric tricycles, bicycles, and cars for almost 15 years'.
  - At FamousDaily: More
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• In 1908, The University of Pittsburgh is the first to have used uniform numbers in a football game.
  From Wikipedia: 'Uniform numbers in American football are unusual compared to those in other sports. They are displayed in more locations on the uniform; they are universally worn on both the front and back of the jersey; and in many cases "TV numbers" are displayed on either the jersey sleeves, the shoulder pad, or occasionally on the helmets. The numbers on the front and back of the jersey also are very large, covering most of the jersey. More important, certain numbers may only be worn by players playing specific positions; thus, the jersey numbers assist the officials in determining possible rules infractions by players.
  
  Under current rules in all three of the most prominent levels of American football (high school football, college football and professional football), all players must wear a number between 1 and 99, and no two players may wear the same number on the field at the same time. In the past, players have used the numbers 0, 00 and in two special cases 100. (0 and 00 are still allowed and used in Canadian football.) Those who wear numbers between 50 and 79 are, by rule, prohibited from catching or touching forward passes if their team is in possession of the ball, unless explicitly indicated to the referee during a Tackle-eligible play. Other than this, the correspondence between jersey numbers and player positions is largely an issue of semantics.
  
  The National Football League numbering system dates from a large scale change of their rules in 1973, subsequently amended in various minor ways. As of 2015, players are generally required to wear numbers within ranges based on their positions ...'
  - At FamousDaily: More
  - At Wikipedia: More
• In 1951, The police drama TV show 'Dragnet', premieres. It starred Jack Webb Ben Alexander, Harry Morgan. The number of episodes were: 314 (radio 1949-1957), 276 (TV 1951–1959), 98 (TV 1967–1970), 52 (TV 1989–1991), 22 (TV 2003–2004), 762 (total).
  From Wikipedia: 'Dragnet was an American radio, television and motion picture series, enacting the cases of a dedicated Los Angeles police detective, Sergeant Joe Friday, and his partners. The show takes its name from the police term "dragnet", meaning a system of coordinated measures for apprehending criminals or suspects.
  
  Dragnet is perhaps the most famous and influential police procedural drama in media history. The series gave audience members a feel for the danger and heroism of police work. Dragnet earned praise for improving the public opinion of police officers.
  
  Actor and producer Jack Webb's aims in Dragnet were for realism and unpretentious acting; he achieved both goals, and Dragnet remains a key influence on subsequent police dramas in many media.
  
  The show's cultural impact is such that after five decades, elements of Dragnet are familiar to those who have never seen or heard the program:
  
  The ominous, four-note introduction to the brass and tympani theme music (titled "Danger Ahead") is instantly recognizable (though its origins date to Miklós Rózsa's score for the 1946 film version of The Killers).
  
  Another Dragnet trademark is the show's opening narration: "Ladies and gentlemen: the story you are about to hear is true. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent." This underwent minor revisions over time. The "only" and "ladies and gentlemen" were dropped at some point, and for the television version "hear" was changed to "see". Variations on this narration have been featured in subsequent crime dramas, and in parodies of the dramas (e.g. "Only the facts have been changed to protect the guilty")'.
  - At FamousDaily: More
  - At Wikipedia: More
  - On YouTube (TV show): More
  - On YouTube (Radio show): More
• In 1955, The American Federation of Labor merges with the Congress of Industrial Organizations, to form the AFL-CIO.
  From Wikipedia: 'The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL–CIO) is a national trade union center and the largest federation of unions in the United States. It is made up of fifty-six national and international unions, together representing more than 12 million active and retired workers. The AFL–CIO engages in substantial political spending and activism.
  
  The AFL–CIO was formed in 1955 when the AFL and the CIO merged after a long estrangement. Membership in the union peaked in 1979, when the AFL–CIO had nearly twenty million members. From 1955 until 2005, the AFL–CIO's member unions represented nearly all unionized workers in the United States. Several large unions split away from AFL–CIO and formed the rival Change to Win Federation in 2005, although a number of those unions have since re-affiliated. The largest union currently in the AFL–CIO is the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), with approximately 1.4 million members'.
  - At FamousDaily: More
  - At Wikipedia: More
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• In 1973, Monty Python's final episode airs on BBC. It starred Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, With, Carol Cleveland, Ian Davidson, Connie Booth. It ran for for 4 seasons, 45 ep. from December 5,, 1969..
  From Wikipedia: 'Monty Python’s Flying Circus (known during the final series as just Monty Python) is a British sketch comedy series created by the comedy group Monty Python and broadcast by the BBC from 1969 to 1974. The shows were composed of surreality, risqué or innuendo-laden humour, sight gags and observational sketches without punchlines. It also featured animations by group member Terry Gilliam, often sequenced or merged with live action. The first episode was recorded on 7 September and premiered on 5 October 1969 on BBC One, with 45 episodes airing over four series from 1969 to 1974, plus two episodes for German TV.
  
  The show often targets the idiosyncrasies of British life, especially that of professionals, and is at times politically charged. The members of Monty Python were highly educated. Terry Jones and Michael Palin are Oxford University graduates; Eric Idle, John Cleese, and Graham Chapman attended Cambridge University; and American-born member Gilliam is an Occidental College graduate. Their comedy is often pointedly intellectual, with numerous erudite references to philosophers and literary figures. The series followed and elaborated upon the style used by Spike Milligan in his ground breaking series Q5, rather than the traditional sketch show format. The team intended their humour to be impossible to categorise, and succeeded so completely that the adjective "Pythonesque" was invented to define it and, later, similar material.
  
  The Pythons play the majority of the series characters themselves, including the majority of the female characters, but occasionally they cast an extra actor. Regular supporting cast members include Carol Cleveland (referred to by the team as the unofficial "Seventh Python"), Connie Booth (Cleese's first wife), series Producer Ian MacNaughton, Ian Davidson, Neil Innes (in the fourth series), and Fred Tomlinson and the Fred Tomlinson Singers (for musical numbers).
  
  The series' theme tune is the first segment of John Philip Sousa's The Liberty Bell, as played by the Band of the Grenadier Guards, and chosen because it was in the public domain and thus could be used without charge'.
  - At FamousDaily: More
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Tomorrow's food holiday will be 'National Sacher Torte Day'. It was created by Austrian Franz Sacher in 1832. It's a very fancy chocolate torte.
[The Hankster says] Fancy unpronounceable name or not, chocolate and cake always sounds good to me.

It will also be 'National Comfort Food Day'.
[The Hankster says] Silly me. I was going to list some comfort foods. It is like eating to the beat of a different chomp. I'm sure you have your favorites.

Tomorrow is 'Repeal Day'. It celebrates the 21st amendment the US Constitution, which repealed the 18th amendment, which was the prohibition against alcoholic drinks.

We have two an awareness days tomorrow. 'International Volunteer Day'. It is a U.N. recognition day and 'World Soil Day'.

Tomorrow is 'International Ninja Day'.
[The Hankster says] I did a lot of stealthy Ninja work as a kid spying on my sister. I did some good work, even though my mother would not let me dye a sheet black, for a cape.

With all the hassle and bustle of shopping, remember that tomorrow is 'National Salesperson Day'.

Nathaniel Hawthorne once said 'Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind.'
[The Hankster says] Time leaves a shadow behind, but it is not always a dark mysterious one. Let us step back into the shadow of December 5 in the past and shine a little light on it.

In 1848, President Polk triggers the Gold Rush of 1849 by confirming gold discovery in California.

In 1876, Daniel Stillson patents the first adjustable pipe wrench.

In 1893, The first appearance of an electric car.

In 1908, The University of Pittsburgh is the first to have used uniform numbersin a football game.

In 1951, The TV show Dragnet premieres.

In 1973, Monty Python's final episode airs on BBC.

No. 1 song

• She's Not There - The Zombies: More
  'Leader of the Pack' has been displaced by 'She's Not There', which will hold the no. 1 spot until December 12 1964, when 'Ringo - Lorne Greene', takes over.

Top movie

• Roustabout More
  Having displaced 'Kitten with a Whip', it will be there until the weekend box office of December 13 1964 when, 'Father Goose', takes over.

• FamousBirthdays.com: December 5 Birthdays More
• FamousDaily.com: December 5 History More
• History.com: Historical Events on 5th December More
• HistoryOrb.com: Famous Deaths on 5th December More
• On-This-day.com history 5th December More
• On-This-day.com music history 5th December More
• Wikipedia.com: History December 5 More

Food:
Buckwheat Month
Tomato and Winter Squash Month
Worldwide Food Service Safety Month
National Egg Nog Month
National Fruit Cake Month
Root Vegetables Month
Other:
World Aids Month
National Write A Business Plan Month
Safe Toys and Gifts Month
National Tie Month Universal Human Rights Month
National Drunk and Drugged Driving (3D) Prevention Month
Colorectal Cancer Education and Awareness Month National Tie Month

December is:

December origin (from Wikipedia): ' December gets its name from the Latin word decem (meaning ten) because it was originally the tenth month of the year in the Roman calendar, which began in March. The winter days following December were not included as part of any month. Later, the months of January and February were created out of the monthless period and added to the beginning of the calendar, but December retained its name. '

' December is the first month of meteorological winter in the Northern Hemisphere. In the Southern Hemisphere, December is the seasonal equivalent to June in the Northern hemisphere, which is the first month of summer. D ecember is the month with the shortest daylight hours of the year in the Northern Hemisphere and the longest daylight hours of the year in the Southern Hemisphere. '

December at Wikipedia: More

If you couldn't afford 90 cents for a movie ticket, 50 years ago, or your 45 RPM record player was broke, you might watch one of these shows on TV.
From this Wikipedia article: More

Best selling books of 1964 More

• Astronomy Picture of the Day: More
• NOAA: - National Hurricane Center - Atlantic Graphical Tropical Weather Outlook: More
• Listen to Old Radio Shows: (streaming mp3 with schedule) More
• NASA TV: (video feed) More
  NASA TV schedule: More
• Public Domain eBook Links

  Sites for downloading or reading free Public Domain eBooks. Available in various formats. More

• Podcast: A Moment of Science. Approximately 1 minute general science facts.
  Home page: More
  RSS: More
• Podcast: The Naked Scientists. Current science, medicine, space and other science
  Home page: More
  RSS: More
• Podcast: Quirks & Quarks. Current science news.
  Home page: More
  RSS: More
• Articles and videos: Universe Today. Current space and astronomy news.
  Home page: More
  RSS: More
• Old Picture of the Day - "Each day we bring you one stunning little glimpse of history in the form of a historical photograph."
  Home page: More
  RSS: More

Below, are listed several holiday sites that I reference in addition to other holiday researches.

US Government Holidays

• 2014 Postal Holidays More
• 2014 Official Federal Holidays More

Holidays Worldwide

• List of holidays by country More
• Holidays and Observances around the World More