December 5th, 2008

Today in History

1934:
Italian troops attack Wal Wal in Ethiopia (it took four days to capture the city).

1933:
Prohibition ends: Utah becomes the 36th U.S. state to ratify the Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution, thus establishing the required 3/4th of states needed to enact the amendment (this overturned the 18th Amendment which had outlawed alcohol in the United States).

1932:
German physicist Albert Einstein granted a visa

1926:
Sergei Eisenstein's "Battleship Potemkin," debuts

1766:
In London, James Christie holds his first sale (he later founded Christie's, the world's oldest auction house).