On December 10th...

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1520 Martin Luther publicly burned the papal edict demanding that he recant.

1582 France began using the Gregorian calendar.

1688 King James II of England fled London.

1799 France adopted the metric system.

1805 Journalist and abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison was born.

1816 The Dutch retook Sumatra from the British.

1817 Mississippi became the 20th state.

1822 Composer César Franck was born.

1830 Poet Emily Dickinson was born.

1831 Physicist Thomas Johann Seebeck died.

1836 Emory College (now Emory University) was chartered in Oxford, Georgia.

1864 The Siege of Savannah, Georgia, began.

1865 King Leopold of Belgium died.

1869 The Territory of Wyoming granted women the right to vote and hold office.
1869 The first American chapter of Kappa Sigma was founded at the University of Virginia.

1891 Poet Nelly Sachs was born.

1896 The first intercollegiate basketball game was played -- Wesleyan beat Yale 4-3.
1896 Inventor and philanthropist Alfred Nobel died.

1898 A peace treaty was signed in Paris, officially ending the Spanish-American War.

1899 Delta Sigma Phi fraternity was founded at the City College of New York.

1901 The first Nobel Prizes were awarded.

1902 Tasmania gave women the right to vote.

1903 Actress Una Merkel was born.

1904 Pi Kappa Phi was founded.
1904 Antonín Novotný, First Secretary of the Czechoslovak Communist Party, was born.

1906 President Theodore Roosevelt became the first American to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace, for his role in mediating an end to the Russo-Japanese War.

1909 Sioux chief Red Cloud died.

1911 Calbraith Rogers completed the first crossing of the United States by airplane.
1911 Television journalist Chet Huntley was born.

1914 The French government returned to Paris.
1914 Actress Dorothy Lamour was born.

1917 Former Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie Bowell died.

1919 The National League voted to ban the spitball's use by all new pitchers.

1920 Horace Elgin Dodge, automobile manufacturing pioneer, died.

1922 Pete Henry made the longest known NFL drop-kicked field goal, 45 yards.

1924 Major League Baseball agreed to alternate World Series games 1, 2, 6, and 7 between the two leagues.

1927 The Grand Ole Opry made its first radio broadcast.

1928 Actor Dan Blocker was born.

1931 Niceto Zamora and Manuel Azaña became President and Prime Minister of Spain, respectively.

1932 King Rama VII granted Thailand a constitution.

1936 King Edward VIII abdicated the British throne.

1939 The Green Bay Packers defeated the New York Giants 27-0 for the NFL Championship.

1941 Japanese troops overran Guam.

1946 Baseball player Walter Johnson died.
1946 Journalist-author Damon Runyon died.

1948 The United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

1952 Izhak Ben-Zvi was elected President of Israel.
1952 Actress Susan Dey was born.

1955 The Ryan X-13 "Vertijet" made its first test flight.

1961 Actress Nia Peeples was born.

1963 Zanzibar became an independent nation.

1964 Chef Bobby Flay was born.

1967 Singer Otis Redding died.

1974 Helios 1 was launched.

1977 The first cosmonauts boarded the Soviet space station Salyut 6.

1978 The United States defeated Great Britain 4-1 for the 67th Davis Cup.
1978 Superman: The Movie premiered.
1978 Film director Ed Wood died.

1979 Evangelist Fulton J. Sheen died.

1983 Raul Alfonsin was inaugurated as the first civilian President of Argentina.
1983 The Pittsburgh Steelers beat the New York Jets 34-7 in the last NFL game at Shea Stadium.

1985 The film Out of Africa premiered.

1987 Violinist Jascha Heifetz died.

1989 President of Czechoslovakian President Gustav Husak resigned.

1990 Businessman Armand Hammer died.

1996 Musician Faron Young died.

1999 Actress Shirley Hemphill died.

2000 Spain defeated Australia 3-1 for the 89th Davis Cup.

2002 U.S. Senator Eugene McCarthy died.

2005 Comedian Richard Pryor died.

2006 Former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet died.

2011 A bus fell into a roadside pond in Minquan County, China, killing 11 persons and injuring 23.

2013 Uruguay became the first country tolegalize the growth, sale, and use of marijuana.

2016 Terrorist bomb attacks outside a stadium in Istanbul, Turkey, killed 38 persons and injured 166.

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This page was last updated on December 11, 2018.