Timeline December 1905

Events in December 1905 10

• 1905 – 1911 The Persian Constitutional Revolution The first constitution in the Middle East Merchants, clerics and intellectuals take sanctuary in the British legation and in mosques until the Shah concedes an elected assembly. The Majlis meets in 1906 and a constitution is signed in December. The next Shah bombards the parliament building with Russian-officered artillery in 1908 and revolutionaries retake Tehran in 1909 and depose him. Britain and Russia, who had already carved Persia into spheres of influence in 1907, help finish the experiment off. It is the first constitutional revolution in Asia west of Japan and the direct ancestor of Iranian constitutional politics ever since.
• 1905 – 1906 The Schlieffen Plan A memorandum that outlived its author Alfred von Schlieffen, retiring as Chief of the German General Staff, leaves a memorandum on how Germany might win a war on two fronts: hold in the east, swing an overwhelmingly heavy right wing through Belgium, envelop Paris, then turn round. It assumes a fixed timetable, a violated neutrality and a France that obliges. Historians still argue over how far the 1914 deployment really followed it, but the habit of thinking of war as a schedule that must start on time is a large part of why 1914 could not be stopped.
• 1905 The Schlieffen Plan Berlin, Germany Germany's answer to a two-front war: knock out France in six weeks by swinging through Belgium, then turn east. It committed Germany to invading a neutral country in any war with Russia.
• 1905 – 1986 Otto Preminger (1905-1986) Died 23 April 1986, aged 80 Austrian-born film director and producer known for challenging Hollywood censorship with films such as The Moon Is Blue and Anatomy of a Murder. His work helped weaken the Motion Picture Production Code's grip on American cinema. He died in New York City.
• 1905 The Moscow uprising is crushed Artillery in Presnya With the St Petersburg Soviet arrested and Trotsky in custody, Moscow calls a general strike that turns into ten days of barricades. The government brings in the Semyonovsky Guards and shells the working-class Presnya district with field artillery. Around a thousand die. It is the end of the revolution as an armed movement.
• 1905 France enacts separation of church and state Law of 1905 ends state funding of religion The French National Assembly passed a law formally separating church and state, ending government financing of religious institutions and guaranteeing freedom of religious practice. The law abrogated Napoleon's 1801 Concordat and provoked strong opposition from the Catholic Church. It remains a cornerstone of French secularism, or laicite, to this day.
• 1905 – 1994 Gilbert Roland (1905-1994) Mexican-born actor with a film career of six decades, from Camille to Cheyenne Autumn.
• 1905 Gilbert Roland born in Ciudad Juárez Gilbert Roland is born in Ciudad Juárez.
• 1905 – 2002 Simo Häyhä The White Death A sniper during the Winter War credited with over 500 kills; a symbol of the "Sisu" spirit.
• 1905 – 1976 Howard Hughes (1905-1976) Died 5 April 1976, aged 70 Howard Hughes, the American business magnate, aviator and filmmaker, died aboard an aircraft en route to a Houston hospital. In his final years he lived as a reclusive invalid, moving between hotel penthouses and avoiding public contact. He had built a fortune spanning aviation, film production and real estate.