December 5 Through History

Explanation: The Montgomery Bus Boycott lasted 381 days. It was triggered by the arrest of Rosa Parks, who refused to give up her seat to a white passenger. Martin Luther King played a leading role in it, which propelled him onto the national stage.

Explanation: Prohibition had been established by the Eighteenth Amendment in 1919. Far from eliminating alcohol consumption, it fueled the rise of organized crime and bootleggers like Al Capone. Its repeal in 1933 was partly driven by the economic crisis, which required new tax revenues.

Explanation: Before settling in New York, the UN held its first sessions in London in 1946. The current site, in Manhattan, was funded by a donation of $8.5 million from John D. Rockefeller Jr. The Secretariat building, inaugurated in 1952, has become one of the symbols of global diplomacy.

Explanation: Johnny Hallyday, whose real name was Jean-Philippe Smet, had announced his illness in March 2017. Considered the "French Elvis Presley", he sold more than 100 million records over a career spanning more than 50 years. His passing triggered a period of national mourning in France.

Explanation: Walt Disney co-founded the Disney studio with his brother Roy in 1923. He created Mickey Mouse in 1928 and produced the first feature-length animated sound film in color, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, in 1937. He received 22 Oscars during his career, a record.

Explanation: The franc à cheval gets its name from the effigy of King John II on horseback struck on the coin. This currency was created to pay the king's ransom, as he had been taken prisoner by the English at the Battle of Poitiers in 1356. The word "franc" symbolized the recovered freedom of the sovereign.

Explanation: Stalin had the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour demolished in 1931 to build a gigantic Palace of the Soviets, a project that never came to fruition. The site eventually served as an open-air swimming pool. The cathedral was rebuilt to its original design between 1994 and 2000, after the fall of the USSR.

Explanation: Werner Heisenberg is best known for his uncertainty principle, formulated in 1927, which states that it is impossible to simultaneously measure with precision both the position and the momentum of a particle. He led the German nuclear program during World War II, but it never resulted in an atomic bomb.

Explanation: Cicero's 4 speeches against Catiline are among the most studied texts in Latin rhetoric. Cicero thus foiled the Catilinarian conspiracy, a plot aimed at overthrowing the Roman Republic. For this act, he received the honorary title of 'father of the fatherland', but was also exiled a few years later by his political enemies.

Explanation: Little Richard, with hits like Tutti Frutti (1955) and Long Tall Sally (1956), laid the foundations of rock and roll and influenced artists like the Beatles, James Brown and Michael Jackson. His flamboyant stage style, costumes and frantic piano playing redefined the image of the rock musician.