WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2007

Today is Wednesday, December 5, the 338th day of 2007. There are 27 days left in the year.

448 _ Bshop Jona of Moscow chosen as metropolitan of Kiev/Intoxication

1456 _ Earthquake strikes Naples; about 35,000 die

1496 _ Jews are expelled from Portugal by order of King Manuel I

1602 _ Giulio Caccini's ``Euridice" premieres in Florence

1766 _ London auctioneers Christie's hold their first sale

1792 _ George Washington re-elected U.S. president, John Adams vice-president

1879 _ First automatic telephone switching system patented

1925 _ The German government of Luther falls

1926 _ Sergei Eisenstein's ``Battleship Potemkin" debuts

1932 _ German physicist Albert Einstein granted a visa

1941 _ Russian anti-offensive in Moscow drives out the Nazi army

1972 _ Australia Labour party wins parliamentary election

1977 _ Egypt breaks diplomatic relations with Syria, Libya, Algeria, Iraq and South Yemen

1978 _ The European Union establishes the uropean Monetary System (EMS)

1989 _ France TGV train reaches world record speed of 482.4 kph

1990 _ Salman Rushdie, author (ordered to death by Iran for blasphemy), appears in public for 1st time in two years