December 10

Events

Pre-1600

• 1317 - The Nyköping Banquet: Birger, King of Sweden treacherously seizes his two brothers, dukes Valdemar and Erik, who are subsequently starved to death in the dungeon of Nyköping Castle.
• 1508 - The League of Cambrai is formed by Pope Julius II, Louis XII of France, Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor and Ferdinand II of Aragon as an alliance against Venice.
• 1520 - Martin Luther burns his copy of the papal bull Exsurge Domine outside Wittenberg's Elster Gate.
• 1541 - Thomas Culpeper and Francis Dereham are executed for having affairs with Catherine Howard, Queen of England and wife of Henry VIII.

  1601–1900

• 1652 - Defeat at the Battle of Dungeness causes the Commonwealth of England to reform its navy.
• 1665 - The Royal Netherlands Marine Corps is founded by Michiel de Ruyter.
• 1684 - Isaac Newton's derivation of Kepler's laws from his theory of gravity, contained in the paper De motu corporum in gyrum, is read to the Royal Society by Edmond Halley.
• 1768 - The first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica is published.
• 1799 - France adopts the metre as its official unit of length.
• 1817 - Mississippi becomes the 20th U.S. state.
• 1861 - American Civil War: The Confederate States of America accept a rival state government's pronouncement that declares Kentucky to be the 12th state of the Confederacy.
• 1861 - Forces led by Nguyễn Trung Trực, an anti-colonial guerrilla leader in southern Vietnam, sink the French lorcha L'Esperance.
• 1864 - American Civil War: Sherman's March to the Sea: Major General William Tecumseh Sherman's Union Army troops reach the outer Confederate defenses of Savannah, Georgia.
• 1877 - Russo-Turkish War: The Russian Army captures Plevna after a 5-month siege. The garrison of 25,000 surviving Turks surrenders. The Russian victory is decisive for the outcome of the war and the Liberation of Bulgaria.
• 1896 - Alfred Jarry's Ubu Roi premieres in Paris. A riot breaks out at the end of the performance.
• 1898 - Spanish–American War: The Treaty of Paris is signed, officially ending the conflict. Spain cedes administration of Cuba to the United States, and the United States agrees to pay Spain $20 million for the Philippines.

  1901–present

• 1901 - The first Nobel Prize ceremony is held in Stockholm on the fifth anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death.
• 1902 - The opening of the reservoir of the Aswan Dam in Egypt.
• 1906 - U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in the mediation of the Russo-Japanese War, becoming the first American to win a Nobel Prize in any field.
• 1907 - The worst night of the Brown Dog riots in London, when 1,000 medical students, protesting against the existence of a memorial for animals that have been vivisected, clash with 400 police officers.
• 1909 - Selma Lagerlöf becomes the first female writer to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature.
• 1932 - Thailand becomes a constitutional monarchy.
• 1936 - Abdication Crisis: Edward VIII signs the Instrument of Abdication.
• 1941 - World War II: The Royal Navy capital ships and are sunk by Imperial Japanese Navy torpedo bombers near British Malaya.
• 1941 - World War II: Battle of the Philippines: Imperial Japanese forces under the command of General Masaharu Homma land on Luzon.
• 1942 - World War II: Government of Poland in exile send Raczyński's Note to 26 governments who signed the Declaration by United Nations.
• 1948 - The Human Rights Convention is signed by the United Nations.
• 1949 - Chinese Civil War: The People's Liberation Army begins its siege of Chengdu, the last Kuomintang-held city in mainland China, forcing President of the Republic of China Chiang Kai-shek and his government to retreat to Taiwan.
• 1953 - British Prime Minister Winston Churchill receives the Nobel Prize in Literature.
• 1963 - Zanzibar gains independence from the United Kingdom as a constitutional monarchy, under Sultan Jamshid bin Abdullah.
• 1963 - An assassination attempt on the British High Commissioner in Aden kills two people and wounds dozens more.
• 1968 - Japan's biggest heist, the still-unsolved "300 million yen robbery", is carried out in Tokyo.
• 1978 - Arab–Israeli conflict: Prime Minister of Israel Menachem Begin and President of Egypt Anwar Sadat are jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
• 1979 - Kaohsiung Incident: Taiwanese pro-democracy demonstrations are suppressed by the KMT dictatorship, and organizers are arrested.
• 1983 - Democracy is restored in Argentina with the inauguration of President Raúl Alfonsín.
• 1984 - United Nations General Assembly recognizes the Convention against Torture.
• 1989 - Mongolian Revolution: At the country's first open pro-democracy public demonstration, Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj announces the establishment of the Mongolian Democratic Union.
• 1991 - The Nagorno-Karabakh independence referendum is held, with 99.98% voting in favor of independence.
• 1991 - Nursultan Nazarbayev is sworn in as the 1st President of Kazakhstan.
• 1991 - The Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic is renamed into the Republic of Kazakhstan.
• 1992 - Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan establishes the Marriage Fund in the United Arab Emirates in response to rising wedding prices.
• 1993 - The last shift leaves Wearmouth Colliery in Sunderland. The closure of the 156-year-old pit marks the end of the old County Durham coalfield, which had been in operation since the Middle Ages.
• 1994 - Rwandan genocide: Maurice Baril, military advisor to the U.N. Secretary-General and head of the Military Division of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, recommends that UNAMIR stand down.
• 1995 - The Israeli army withdraws from Nablus pursuant to the terms of Oslo Accord.
• 1996 - The new Constitution of South Africa is promulgated by Nelson Mandela.
• 1999 - Helen Clark is sworn in as Prime Minister of New Zealand, the second woman to hold the post and the first following an election.
• 2005 - Sosoliso Airlines Flight 1145 crashes at Port Harcourt International Airport in Nigeria, killing 108 people.
• 2014 - Palestinian minister Ziad Abu Ein is killed after the suppression of a demonstration by Israeli forces in the village in Ramallah.
• 2015 - Rojava conflict: The Syrian Democratic Council is established in Dêrik, forming the political wing of the Syrian Democratic Forces in northeast Syria.
• 2016 - Two explosions outside a football stadium in Istanbul, Turkey, kill 38 people and injure 166 others.
• 2017 - ISIL is defeated in Iraq.
• 2019 - The Ostrava hospital attack in the Czech Republic results in eight deaths, including the perpetrator.
• 2021 - A widespread, deadly, and violent tornado outbreak slams the Central, Midwestern, and Southern regions of the United States. Eighty-nine people are killed by the tornadoes, with most of the fatalities occurring in Kentucky, where a single tornado kills 57 people, and injures hundreds of others. Another tornado in Edwardsville, Illinois strikes an Amazon warehouse, killing six workers.

  Births

Pre-1600

• 553 - Houzhu, emperor of the Chen dynasty
• 1376 - Edmund Mortimer, English nobleman and rebel
• 1452 - Johannes Stöffler, German mathematician and astronomer
• 1472 - Anne de Mowbray, 8th Countess of Norfolk
• 1489 - Gaston of Foix, Duke of Nemours
• 1588 - Isaac Beeckman, Dutch scientist and philosopher

  1601–1900

• 1610 - Adriaen van Ostade, Dutch painter
• 1654 - Giovanni Gioseffo dal Sole, Italian painter
• 1658 - Lancelot Blackburne, Archbishop of York
• 1713 - Johann Nicolaus Mempel, German cantor and organist
• 1751 - George Shaw, English botanist and zoologist
• 1776 - Archduchess Maria Leopoldine of Austria-Este
• 1783 - María Bibiana Benítez, Puerto Rican poet and playwright
• 1787 - Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, American educator, founded the American School for the Deaf
• 1804 - Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi, German mathematician and academic
• 1805 - William Lloyd Garrison, American journalist and activist, founded The Liberator
• 1805 - Joseph Škoda, Czech physician, dermatologist, and academic
• 1811 - Caroline Mehitable Fisher Sawyer, American poet, biographer, and editor
• 1815 - Ada Lovelace, English mathematician and computer scientist
• 1821 - Nikolay Nekrasov, Russian poet and critic
• 1822 - César Franck, Belgian organist and composer
• 1824 - George MacDonald, Scottish minister, author, and poet
• 1827 - Eugene O'Keefe, Canadian businessman and philanthropist
• 1830 - Emily Dickinson, American poet
• 1851 - Melvil Dewey, American librarian, created the Dewey Decimal System
• 1866 - Louis Bolk, Dutch anatomist and biologist
• 1870 - Jadunath Sarkar, Indian historian
• 1870 - Adolf Loos, Austrian architect and theoretician
• 1870 - Pierre Louÿs, Belgian-French author and poet
• 1878 - C. Rajagopalachari, Indian lawyer and politician, 45th Governor-General of India
• 1878 - Mohammad Ali Jauhar, Indian Muslim activist
• 1882 - Otto Neurath, Austrian sociologist and philosopher
• 1882 - Shigenori Tōgō, Japanese politician, 37th Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs
• 1883 - Giovanni Messe, Italian field marshal and politician
• 1885 - Elizabeth Baker, American economist and academic
• 1885 - Marios Varvoglis, Greek composer and conductor
• 1886 - Victor McLaglen, English-American actor
• 1889 - Ray Collins, American actor
• 1890 - László Bárdossy, Hungarian politician and diplomat, 33rd Prime Minister of Hungary
• 1891 - Harold Alexander, 1st Earl Alexander of Tunis, English field marshal and politician, 17th Governor General of Canada
• 1891 - Arlie Mucks, American discus thrower and shot putter
• 1891 - Nelly Sachs, German-Swedish poet and playwright, Nobel Prize laureate
• 1896 - Torsten Bergström, Swedish actor and director