5 January 2025 (MIA)

911 – Saint Naum of Ohrid dies in a monastery along Lake Ohrid. The medieval writer, enlightener was among the disciples of Saints Cyril and Methodius and is associated with the creation of the Glagolitic and Cyrillic script.

1066 – Edward the Confessor dies childless, sparking a succession crisis that will eventually lead to the Norman conquest of England.

1477 – Battle of Nancy: Charles the Bold is killed and Burgundy becomes part of France.

1500 – Duke Ludovico Sforza conquers Milan..

1675 – Battle of Colmar: The French army beats Brandenburg.

1757 – Louis XV of France survives an assassination attempt by Robert-François Damiens, the last person to be executed in France by drawing and quartering, the traditional and gruesome form of capital punishment used for regicides.

1875 – The Palais Garnier, one of the most famous opera houses in the world, is inaugurated in Paris.

1895 – Dreyfus affair: French army officer Alfred Dreyfus is stripped of his rank and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil’s Island.

1912 – The Prague Party Conference takes place.

1913 – First Balkan War: During the Battle of Lemnos, Greek admiral Pavlos Kountouriotis forces the Turkish fleet to retreat to its base within the Dardanelles, from which it did not venture for the rest of the war.

1919 – The German Workers’ Party, which would become the Nazi Party, is founded.

1925 – Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming becomes the first female governor in the United States.

1933 – Construction of the Golden Gate Bridge begins in San Francisco Bay.

1945 – The Soviet Union recognizes the new pro-Soviet government of Poland.

1949 – United States President Harry S. Truman unveils his Fair Deal program.

1952 – The first Macedonian feature film “Frosina” starts shooting in Skopje. The film starring Meri Boshkova, Petre Prlichko and Ilija Dzuvalekovski is directed by Voislav Nanovic.

1952 – Hristo Tatarchev, one of the founders of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization, dies in Turin, Italy.

1950 – In Sverdlovsk air disaster, all 19 of those on board were killed, including almost the entire national ice hockey team (VVS Moscow) of the Soviet Air Force – 11 players, as well as a team doctor and a masseur.

1968 – Alexander Dubček comes to power; “Prague Spring” begins in Czechoslovakia.

1970 – The 7.1 Mw Tonghai earthquake shakes Tonghai County, Yunnan province, China, with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (Extreme). Between 10,000–15,621 were killed and 26,783 were injured.

1972 – United States President Richard Nixon orders the development of a Space Shuttle program.

1975 – The Tasman Bridge in Tasmania, Australia, is struck by the bulk ore carrier Lake Illawarra, killing twelve people.

1976 – The Khmer Rouge proclaim the Constitution of Democratic Kampuchea.

1976 – The Troubles: Gunmen shoot dead ten Protestant civilians after stopping their minibus at Kingsmill in County Armagh, Northern Ireland, UK.

1991 – Georgian forces enter Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, Georgia, opening the 1991–92 South Ossetia War.

1991 – The United States Embassy to Somalia in Mogadishu is evacuated by helicopter airlift days after violence enveloped Mogadishu during the Somali Civil War

1993 – The oil tanker MV Braer runs aground on the coast of the Shetland Islands, spilling 84,700 tons of crude oil.

1995 – The government of the Republic of Macedonia reaches a decision to establish diplomatic relations with Uzbekistan and Moldova.

2000 – Sri Lankan Civil War: Sri Lankan Tamil politician Kumar Ponnambalam is shot dead in Colombo.

2005 – Eris, the most massive and second-largest known dwarf planet in the Solar System, is discovered by the team of Michael E. Brown, Chad Trujillo, and David L. Rabinowitz using images originally taken on October 21, 2003, at the Palomar Observatory.

2014 – A launch of the communication satellite GSAT-14 aboard the GSLV MK.II D5 marks the first successful flight of an Indian cryogenic engine.08:25