Historical timeline for December 5

The International Olympic Committee bans Russia from competing at the 2018 Winter Olympics for doping at the 2014 Winter Olympics.

Exploration Flight Test-1, the first flight test of Orion, is launched.

Militants attack a Defense Ministry compound in Sanaa, Yemen, killing at least 56 people and injuring 200 others.

Westroads Mall shooting: Nineteen-year-old Robert A. Hawkins kills nine people, including himself, with a WASR-10 at a Von Maur department store in Omaha, Nebraska.

Commodore Frank Bainimarama overthrows the government in Fiji.

The Civil Partnership Act comes into effect in the United Kingdom, and the first civil partnership is registered there.

The 6.8 Mw Lake Tanganyika earthquake shakes the eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (Extreme), killing six people.

Space Shuttle Endeavour launches on STS-108, carrying the Expedition 4 crew to the International Space Station.

Azerbaijan Airlines Flight A-56 crashes near Nakhchivan International Airport in Nakhchivan, Azerbaijan, killing 52 people.

Sri Lankan Civil War: Sri Lanka's government announces the conquest of the Tamil stronghold of Jaffna.

The Budapest Memorandum is signed at the OSCE conference in Budapest, Hungary.

Leonid Kravchuk is elected the first president of Ukraine.

Dissolution of the Military Junta in Argentina.

Egypt breaks diplomatic relations with Syria, Libya, Algeria, Iraq and South Yemen in retaliation to preventing President Anwar el-Sadat from pursuing negotiations with Israel at the Tripoli confer.

Battle of Gazipur: Pakistani forces are defeated as India cedes Gazipur to Bangladesh.

Lloyd J. Old discovers the first linkage between the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) and disease—mouse leukemia—opening the way for the recognition of the importance of the MHC in the immune response.

Vietnam War: For his heroism in battle earlier in the year, Captain Roger Donlon is awarded the first Medal of Honor of the war.

Subscriber Trunk Dialling (STD) is inaugurated in the United Kingdom by Queen Elizabeth II when she speaks to the Lord Provost in a call from Bristol to Edinburgh.

The Preston By-pass, the UK's first stretch of motorway, opens to traffic for the first time. (It is now part of the M6 and M55 motorways.)

The American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations merge and form the AFL–CIO.