December 5

1848: President Polk triggered the Gold Rush of '49 by confirming in an address to Congress that gold had been discovered in California. 1879: American aviation pioneer Clyde Cessna was born. 1901: German physicist and Nobel Prize winner Werner Heisenberg, famous for his Heisenberg Principle, was born. 1955: American aircraft designer Glen L(uther) Martin died. 1958: The first stretch of Britain's M6 Motorway, officially opened. 1973: Sir Robert Alexander Watson-Watt, "Father of Radar," died. 1995: Englishman Stanley Runcorn, discoverer of earth's magnetic core reversals, died.