01011205 This Day In History, December 5

63 BC: Marcus Tullius Cicero (commonly-known simply as Cicero), consul of Rome, delivered the fourth and final of the Catiline Orations. The Catiline Orations (or Catilinarian Orations) were speeches to reveal to the Roman Senate the plot of Lucius Sergius Catilina and his allies to overthrow the Roman government. Rome existed as a republic (see The Politics Of Rome) before it restored its monarchy to begin its empire (see A History Of Jerusalem: Pompey And The Caesars).

1349: Jews were massacred in Nuremberg, Germany, in what became known as the Black Death Riots.

1484: Pope Innocent VIII issued a bull (see Papal Bull) condemning the spread of witchcraft and "heresy" in Germany; he ordered that all accused persons were to be executed.

1492: Christopher Columbus "discovered" Haiti (the existing people of the island already knew that it was there; see also Thanksgiving In History and Prophecy).

1496: King Manuel I expelled Jews from Portugal.

1560: King Francis II of France died at age 16 after reigning 1 year.

1594: Flemish geographer Gerardus Mercator died at age 82. The still commonly-used Mercator Projection map is named after him.

1766: Christie's of London held their first auction.

1791: Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died at age 35.

1904: Japanese forces devastated the Russian fleet at Port Arthur in Korea.

1916: David Lloyd George became the Prime Minister of Britain.

1921: Britain reached an accord with Sinn Fein to permit Ireland to become an independent country.

1945: In one of the most famous "Bermuda Triangle" disappearances, the "Lost Squadron" (5 U.S. Navy Avenger bombers with a total of 14 crew) took off on a routine training mission from the Naval Air Station at Fort Lauderdale, Florida. While many believe that the lead pilot simply became lost due to disorientation and/or navigational equipment failure (as radio transmissions within the flight overheard by other aircraft in the area indicated) and led the squadron out to sea where they ran out of fuel and were lost, others regard the disappearance as somehow supernatural.

1975: Less than a month after describing Zionism as racism (see A History Of Jerusalem: Zionism), the United Nations General Assembly (see Israel In History and Prophecy: The Balfour Declaration to understand the role of the UN in the establishment of the modern state of Israel) ordered Israel to return all "occupied Arab land" (that the Arab nations lost in battle after they attacked Israel) without qualification (that is, without peace treaties), and to "restore the legitimate rights of the Palestinians." It was one of the most anti-Jewish, hypocritical demands ever made by the United Nations General Assembly, and the Israeli government rightfully refused.

1978: The Soviet Union signed a 20 year "friendship pact" with then-communist Afghanistan. The Soviets invaded Afghanistan a year later, in December 1979, at the "request of the government of Afghanistan" to assist in the fight against the Mujahideen, an allied group of Afghan opposition groups who were being supported and armed by the U.S. and Britain (as well as a number of Muslim nations in the Middle East whose existing pro-western dictatorships were being threatened by the communist dictatorships). Ironically, when the Russians withdrew from Afghanistan, and the U.S. invaded Afghanistan after the 9-11 terrorist attacks, the U.S. ended up fighting the same insurgents that it once armed and supplied in their fight against the Russians - they were called "freedom fighters" when they were fighting the Russians but "terrorists" when they fought the U.S.

1999: Bert Hoffmeister died at age 92. He was the most decorated Canadian solder of the First World War; he also received the Legion of Merit from the U.S., the Order of Orange Nassau from the Netherlands and the Military Order of Italy (listen also to our Sermon The European World Wars).