6 décembre

The last defenders crowded into the Church of the Tithes, whose vaults collapsed under their weight. When John of Plano Carpini passed through in 1246 he found scarcely two hundred houses standing.

Thomas had worked on the Summa Theologiae since 1265, reconciling Aristotle with Christian doctrine question by question. After Mass in Naples he stopped writing; his companion Reginald later said Thomas told him everything he had written seemed like straw. He died three months later.

The body was blessed in the Crucifix Chapel of St Stephen’s and taken to the St Marx cemetery outside the walls. Under Joseph II’s rules most Viennese were buried in shared graves without mourners at the graveside; it was an ordinary burial, not a pauper’s, and the exact spot was soon lost.

Georgia’s legislature became the 27th of 36 states to ratify: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” Secretary of State Seward…

Georgia was the 27th state to ratify, completing the three quarters needed; Secretary of State Seward certified it on 18 December. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or…

Emile Berliner and his brother Joseph opened a pressing plant in their home town as the German arm of the London-based Gramophone Company. It is the oldest record label still in business.

A New Style date: Finland’s parliament approved the Senate’s declaration. Sovnarkom recognised it on 18 December Old Style (31 December), the first state to do so.

Enrico Fermi, Edoardo Amaldi, Franco Rasetti, Emilio Segrè, Oscar D’Agostino and Bruno Pontecorvo turned Joliot’s method on neutrons and went through the periodic table element by element. The group broke up as Mussolini’s racial laws arrived, and Fermi left for Stockholm on 6 December 1938.

A water polo semi-final five weeks after Soviet tanks crushed the Hungarian uprising. Hungary led 4–0 when Ervin Zádor came out of the pool bleeding from a punch, and the match was stopped. Hungary went on to win the gold; about half the team never went home.

America’s answer rose about a metre, lost thrust and sank back in a fireball, on live television. The press called it Flopnik and Kaputnik. The grapefruit-sized satellite was thrown clear, still beeping.

Spiro Agnew had resigned as vice president in October 1973. Nixon nominated House minority leader Gerald Ford, and Congress confirmed him in the first use of the amendment’s vacancy clause.

The FDA approved saquinavir, the first of a new class that blocks the enzyme HIV uses to cut its proteins to size. Ritonavir and indinavir followed within four months.

Five years to the day after the first attempt, controllers fired the small attitude thrusters instead of the broken engine and put it into an orbit around Venus far wider than planned.