THURSDAY, JANUARY 5, 2012

Today is Thursday, January 5, the fifth day of 2012. There are 361 days left in the year.

1709 ― Sudden extreme cold kills thousands of Europeans

1895 ― French Captain Alfred Dreyfus, convicted of treason, publicly stripped of his rank; later declared innocent

1896 ― German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen's discovers x-rays

1930 ― Mao Tse-tung writes ``A Single Spark Can Start a Prairie Fire"

1949 ― U.S. President Harry S. Truman labels his administration the ``Fair Deal"

1956 ― Elvis Presley records ``Heartbreak Hotel"

1961 ― U.S. breaks diplomatic relations with Cuba

1972 ― NASA announces development of space shuttle

1976 ― Cambodia is renamed ``Democratic Kampuchea"

1998 ― Vandals decapitate Copenhagen's Little Mermaid