December 5

Holidays

Saint Nicholas, also called Nikolaos of Myra, was a historic 4th-century saint and Greek Bishop of Myra (Demre, part of modern-day Turkey) in Lycia. Because of the many miracles attributed to his intercession, he is also known as Nikolaos the Wonderworker (Νικόλαος ὁ Θαυματουργός, Nikolaos ho Thaumaturgos). He had a reputation for secret gift-giving, such as putting coins in the shoes of those who left them out for him, and thus became the model for Santa Claus, whose modern name comes from the Dutch Sinterklaas, itself from a series of elisions and corruptions of the transliteration of "Saint Nikolaos". His reputation evolved among the faithful, as was common for early Christian saints. In 1087, part of the relics (about half of the bones) were furtively translated to Bari, in southeastern Italy; for this reason, he is also known as Nikolaos of Bari. The remaining bones were taken to Venice in 1100. His feast day is 6 December.

Births

 

Henry Lawes (5 December 1595 – 21 October 1662) was an English musician and composer.He was born at Dinton in Wiltshire, and received his musical education from John Cooper, better known under his Italian pseudonym Giovanni Coperario, a famous composer of the day. In 1626, Lawes was received as one of the Gentlemen of the Chapel Royal, and held the position until the Commonwealth put a stop to church music. Nevertheless Lawes continued his work as a composer, and the famous collection of his vocal pieces, Ayres and Dialogues for One, Two and Three Voyces, was published in 1653 and followed by two other books under the same title in 1655 and 1658 respectively. On the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, Lawes returned to the royal chapel, and composed an anthem for the coronation of King Charles II. Lawes was buried in Westminster Abbey.

Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer KG (5 December 1661 – 21 May 1724) was a British politician and statesman of the late Stuart and early Georgian periods. He began his career as a Whig, before defecting to a new Tory Ministry. Between 1711 and 1714 he served as First Lord of the Treasury, effectively Queen Anne's chief minister. He has been called a Prime Minister, though it is generally accepted that the position was first held by Sir Robert Walpole in 1721. Harley's government agreed the Treaty of Utrecht with France in 1713, bringing an end to twelve years of British involvement in the War of the Spanish Succession. In 1714 he fell from favour following the accession of the first monarch of the House of Hanover, George I and was for a time imprisoned in the Tower of London by his political enemies.

Christina Georgina Rossetti (5 December 1830 – 29 December 1894) was an English poet who wrote a variety of romantic, devotional, and children's poems. She is perhaps best known for her long poem Goblin Market, her love poem Remember, and for the words of the Christmas carol In the Bleak Midwinter.
Admiral of the Fleet 

John Rushworth Jellicoe, 1st Earl Jellicoe, GCB, OM, GCVO SGM (5 December 1859 – 20 November 1935) was a Royal Navy officer. He fought in the Egyptian war and the Boxer Rebellion and commanded the Grand Fleet at the Battle of Jutland in May 1916 during World War I. His handling of the fleet at that battle was controversial: he made no serious mistakes and the German High Seas Fleet retreated to port – at a time when defeat would have been catastrophic for Britain – but at the time the British public were disappointed that the Royal Navy had not won a victory on the scale of the Battle of Trafalgar. Jellicoe later served as First Sea Lord but was removed at the end of 1917 as a result of his pessimistic view, declaring that nothing could be done to defeat the U-boats. He also served as the Governor-General of New Zealand in the early 1920s.

David Garshen Bomberg (5 December 1890 – 19 August 1957) was an English painter, and one of the Whitechapel Boys. Bomberg was one of the most audacious of the exceptional generation of artists who studied at the Slade School of Art under Henry Tonks, and which included Mark Gertler, Stanley Spencer, C.R.W. Nevinson and Dora Carrington. Bomberg painted a series of complex geometric compositions combining the influences of cubism and futurism in the years immediately preceding World War I; typically using a limited number of striking colours, turning humans into simple, angular shapes, and sometimes overlaying the whole painting a strong grid-work colouring scheme. He was expelled from the Slade School of Art in 1913, with agreement between the senior teachers Tonks, Frederick Brown and Philip Wilson Steer, because of the audacity of his breach from the conventional approach of that time.

Emeric Pressburger (5 December 1902 – 5 February 1988) was a Hungarian-British screenwriter, film director, and producer. He is best known for his series of film collaborations with Michael Powell, in a multiple-award-winning partnership known as The Archers and produced a series of classic British films, notably 49th Parallel (1941), The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), A Matter of Life and Death (1946, also called Stairway to Heaven), Black Narcissus (1947), The Red Shoes (1948), and The Tales of Hoffmann (1951).

Cecil Frank Powell, FRS (5 December 1903 – 9 August 1969) was a British physicist, and Nobel Prize in Physics laureate for his development of the photographic method of studying nuclear processes and for the resulting discovery of the pion (pi-meson), a heavy subatomic particle.Powell was born in Tonbridge, Kent, England, the son of a local gunsmith, and educated at a local elementary school before gaining a scholarship to the Judd School, Tonbridge, which now has one of its four houses named after Powell (the house colour is green), and awards the Powell Physics and Mathematics Prize to an upper sixth form student every year in his honour. Following this he attended Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, graduating in 1925 in the natural sciences. After completing his bachelor's degree he worked at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge, under C.T.R. Wilson and Lord Rutherford, conducting research into condensation phenomena, and gaining his Ph.D. in Physics in 1927.

Kenneth Henry Downing (5 December, 1917 in Chesterton, Staffordshire – 3 May, 2004 in Monte Carlo) was a racing driver from England. Downing was born into a wealthy family, whose interests included manufacturing, transport and garages. He began racing at 21, competing in his first event the Eastbourne Rally in a Healey, and competed in sports car races throughout the 1940s. Initially racing a Brooke Special, he switched to a Connaught in 1951, winning 17 races throughout the year.

John Altman (born 5 December 1949, London) is a British film composer, music arranger, orchestrator and conductor.

Thomas Billington (born December 5, 1958), best known by the ring name Dynamite Kid, is a retired British professional wrestler who competed in the World Wrestling Federation, Stampede Wrestling, All Japan Pro Wrestling and New Japan Pro Wrestling in the mid- to late-1980s. With his cousin Davey Boy Smith, Billington became best known for being half of the tag team the British Bulldogs. He has had notable feuds with Tiger Mask in Japan and Bret Hart in Canada. He was born in Golborne, Lancashire.

Lee Chapman (born Lincoln, 5 December 1959) is an English former professional footballer who played as a striker from 1978 until 1996, in which he scored almost 200 first-team goals. He is best known for spells with Stoke City, Leeds United, Sheffield Wednesday, Nottingham Forest and West Ham United. He also played for Plymouth Argyle, Arsenal, Sunderland, Portsmouth, Southend United, Ipswich Town and Swansea City. As well as this he played in both France and Norway for Chamois Niortais and Strømsgodset IF, and was capped by both the England U21 and England B teams.

Lewis Gordon Pugh, OIG (born 5 December 1969) is a British environmental campaigner, maritime lawyer and pioneer swimmer. Pugh was the first person to complete a long-distance swim in every ocean. He frequently swims in vulnerable ecosystems to draw attention to their plight and is best known for undertaking the first swim across the North Pole in 2007 to highlight the melting of the Arctic sea ice and for swimming across a glacial lake under the summit of Mount Everest in 2010 to draw attention to the melting glaciers in the Himalayas, and the impact the reduced water supply will have on world peace. In 2010 he was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum for his "potential to contribute to shaping the future of the world through inspiring leadership."