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Local history
50 years ago: 1973
Philip R. Sheridan, FBI special agent from Pittsburgh, spoke about crime prevention to the Altoona Kiwanis Club at the Penn Alto Hotel. Altoona Mayor William Stouffer and Police Chief Jack Kuhn attended.
25 years ago: 1998
The Blair County Commissioners sold historic Highland Hall (1867) in Hollidaysburg to RADD Development Co., owned by local businessmen Ralph Albarano and Donald Devorris, for $350,000.
10 years ago: 2013
The Altoona Area School District created an app that informed parents of school menus, the district calendar of events and their children's grades at no cost. The grade information was protected by a password.
-- Compiled by Tim Doyle
World history
Today is Tuesday, Dec. 5, the 339th day of 2023. There are 26 days left in the year.
Today's Highlight in History:
On Dec. 5, 2013, Nelson Mandela, the anti-apartheid leader who became South Africa's first Black president, died at age 95.
On this date:
-- In 1791, composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died in Vienna, Austria, at age 35.
-- In 1792, George Washington was reelected president; John Adams was reelected 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 1952, the Great Smog of London descended on the British capital; the unusually thick fog, which contained toxic pollutants, lasted five days and was blamed for causing thousands of deaths.
-- 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 1994, Republicans chose Newt Gingrich to be the first GOP speaker of the House in four decades.
-- In 2009, a jury in Perugia, Italy, convicted American student Amanda Knox and her former Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, of murdering Knox's British roommate, Meredith Kercher, and sentenced them to long prison terms. (After a series of back-and-forth rulings, Knox and Sollecito were definitively acquitted in 2015 by Italy's highest court.)
-- In 2012, Jazz composer and pianist Dave Brubeck died in Norwalk, Connecticut, a day before he would have turned 92.
-- 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 2022, Moscow unleashed a massive missile barrage in Ukraine, striking homes and buildings and killing civilians just hours after the Kremlin claimed Ukrainian drones struck two air bases deep inside Russian territory.
-- The Associated Press