December 10
December 10 is the 344th day of the year (345th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, with 21 days remaining until the end of the year.[1] The date holds significance for the annual awarding of the Nobel Prizes in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, and economic sciences in Stockholm, and the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, a tradition established to commemorate the death of Alfred Nobel on December 10, 1896.[2][3] December 10 is also designated as Human Rights Day by the United Nations, marking the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the UN General Assembly on December 10, 1948, which outlined fundamental rights and freedoms amid post-World War II efforts to establish international norms against prior atrocities.[4][5] Historically, the date saw the signing of the Treaty of Paris on December 10, 1898, formally ending the Spanish-American War and transferring control of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines from Spain to the United States.[6] Among notable births are mathematician Ada Lovelace in 1815, recognized for her work on Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine, and poet Emily Dickinson in 1830, whose innovative verse gained posthumous acclaim.[7]Events
Pre-1600
On December 10, 1041, Byzantine Emperor Michael IV succumbed to dropsy in Constantinople, prompting his wife, Empress Zoe, to proclaim their adopted son as Emperor Michael V amid palace intrigues that would soon lead to Zoe's own deposition.[8] The League of Cambrai was formalized on December 10, 1508, uniting Pope Julius II, King Louis XII of France, Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, and King Ferdinand II of Aragon in a pact to dismantle Venetian dominance in northern Italy, marking a pivotal anti-Venetian coalition in the Italian Wars.[9] Portuguese admiral Afonso de Albuquerque secured the conquest of Goa on December 10, 1510, defeating forces of the Bijapur Sultanate after a brief loss and recapture, establishing the city as a strategic Portuguese enclave in India despite subsequent resistance and massacres of Muslim inhabitants.[10] On December 10, 1520, reformer Martin Luther and supporters publicly incinerated Pope Leo X's bull Exsurge Domine—issued the prior June demanding his recantation of 41 theses deemed heretical—in Wittenberg's marketplace, an act of defiance that escalated his breach with the Catholic Church and advanced the Protestant Reformation.[11]1601–1900
In 1652, during the First Anglo-Dutch War, the Dutch fleet under Lieutenant-Admiral Maarten Tromp defeated the English navy in the Battle of Dungeness off the Kent coast; the engagement, fought on 30 November Old Style (equivalent to 10 December New Style), marked a significant Dutch victory that boosted their naval position early in the conflict.[12] On 10 December 1684 (Old Style), Edmond Halley presented Isaac Newton's tract De motu corporum in gyrum to the Royal Society in London; the paper outlined Newton's derivation of Kepler's laws from a universal gravitational force, laying foundational groundwork for the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica published two years later.[13] John Jay, former chief justice of the New York Supreme Court, was elected president of the Continental Congress on 10 December 1778, succeeding Henry Laurens amid the American Revolutionary War; Jay served until 1779, focusing on diplomatic efforts and financial reforms for the fledgling confederation. Mississippi was admitted as the 20th state of the United States on 10 December 1817, under an enabling act passed by Congress earlier that year; the admission followed the acquisition of territory via the Louisiana Purchase and reflected the expansion of slaveholding states in the antebellum era. The Wyoming territorial legislature passed a bill on 10 December 1869 granting women the right to vote in all elections, making Wyoming the first jurisdiction in the U.S. to enact full female suffrage; this progressive measure, retained upon statehood in 1890, predated the national 19th Amendment by half a century. The Treaty of Paris was signed on 10 December 1898 by representatives of the United States and Spain, formally ending the Spanish-American War; the agreement ceded Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines to the U.S. for $20 million, while Cuba gained nominal independence under U.S. influence, marking the decline of Spanish colonial power.1901–present
On December 10, 1901, the first Nobel Prizes were awarded in Stockholm, Sweden, in the categories of physics to Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen for his discovery of X-rays, chemistry to Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff for laws of chemical dynamics and osmotic pressure, physiology or medicine to Emil Adolf von Behring for serum therapy against diphtheria, literature to Sully Prudhomme for poetic compositions, and peace jointly to Henry Dunant for founding the Red Cross and Frédéric Passy for promoting peace congresses.[3] Since then, Nobel Prize award ceremonies have been held annually on December 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death in 1896, with prizes presented in Stockholm for physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, and economics (added in 1969), and the peace prize in Oslo.[14]- 1920: U.S. President Woodrow Wilson received the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in ending World War I and founding the League of Nations, despite U.S. Senate rejection of the Treaty of Versailles.[7]
- 1941: Japanese aircraft sank the British battleships HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse off Malaya, marking the first major naval loss to air power alone in history and weakening Allied defenses in Southeast Asia early in World War II.[15]
- 1948: The United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Paris by a vote of 48-0 with eight abstentions, articulating 30 articles on civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights as a common standard for all nations.[16]
- 1950: Ralph Bunche became the first African American to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, recognized for mediating the 1948 Arab-Israeli armistice agreements as UN principal secretary.[15]
- 1964: Martin Luther King Jr. was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for nonviolent resistance to racial injustice in the U.S. civil rights movement, accepting it on behalf of the movement's participants.
- 1999: Ahmed Zewail received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for femtochemistry studies of chemical reactions on femtosecond timescales, becoming the first Arab American laureate in a science category.[7]
Births
Pre-1600
On December 10, 1041, Byzantine Emperor Michael IV succumbed to dropsy in Constantinople, prompting his wife, Empress Zoe, to proclaim their adopted son as Emperor Michael V amid palace intrigues that would soon lead to Zoe's own deposition.[8] The League of Cambrai was formalized on December 10, 1508, uniting Pope Julius II, King Louis XII of France, Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, and King Ferdinand II of Aragon in a pact to dismantle Venetian dominance in northern Italy, marking a pivotal anti-Venetian coalition in the Italian Wars.[9] Portuguese admiral Afonso de Albuquerque secured the conquest of Goa on December 10, 1510, defeating forces of the Bijapur Sultanate after a brief loss and recapture, establishing the city as a strategic Portuguese enclave in India despite subsequent resistance and massacres of Muslim inhabitants.[10] On December 10, 1520, reformer Martin Luther and supporters publicly incinerated Pope Leo X's bull Exsurge Domine—issued the prior June demanding his recantation of 41 theses deemed heretical—in Wittenberg's marketplace, an act of defiance that escalated his breach with the Catholic Church and advanced the Protestant Reformation.[11]1601–1900
In 1652, during the First Anglo-Dutch War, the Dutch fleet under Lieutenant-Admiral Maarten Tromp defeated the English navy in the Battle of Dungeness off the Kent coast; the engagement, fought on 30 November Old Style (equivalent to 10 December New Style), marked a significant Dutch victory that boosted their naval position early in the conflict.[12] On 10 December 1684 (Old Style), Edmond Halley presented Isaac Newton's tract De motu corporum in gyrum to the Royal Society in London; the paper outlined Newton's derivation of Kepler's laws from a universal gravitational force, laying foundational groundwork for the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica published two years later.[13] John Jay, former chief justice of the New York Supreme Court, was elected president of the Continental Congress on 10 December 1778, succeeding Henry Laurens amid the American Revolutionary War; Jay served until 1779, focusing on diplomatic efforts and financial reforms for the fledgling confederation. Mississippi was admitted as the 20th state of the United States on 10 December 1817, under an enabling act passed by Congress earlier that year; the admission followed the acquisition of territory via the Louisiana Purchase and reflected the expansion of slaveholding states in the antebellum era. The Wyoming territorial legislature passed a bill on 10 December 1869 granting women the right to vote in all elections, making Wyoming the first jurisdiction in the U.S. to enact full female suffrage; this progressive measure, retained upon statehood in 1890, predated the national 19th Amendment by half a century. The Treaty of Paris was signed on 10 December 1898 by representatives of the United States and Spain, formally ending the Spanish-American War; the agreement ceded Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines to the U.S. for $20 million, while Cuba gained nominal independence under U.S. influence, marking the decline of Spanish colonial power.1901–present
On December 10, 1901, the first Nobel Prizes were awarded in Stockholm, Sweden, in the categories of physics to Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen for his discovery of X-rays, chemistry to Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff for laws of chemical dynamics and osmotic pressure, physiology or medicine to Emil Adolf von Behring for serum therapy against diphtheria, literature to Sully Prudhomme for poetic compositions, and peace jointly to Henry Dunant for founding the Red Cross and Frédéric Passy for promoting peace congresses.[3] Since then, Nobel Prize award ceremonies have been held annually on December 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death in 1896, with prizes presented in Stockholm for physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, and economics (added in 1969), and the peace prize in Oslo.[14]- 1920: U.S. President Woodrow Wilson received the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in ending World War I and founding the League of Nations, despite U.S. Senate rejection of the Treaty of Versailles.[7]
- 1941: Japanese aircraft sank the British battleships HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse off Malaya, marking the first major naval loss to air power alone in history and weakening Allied defenses in Southeast Asia early in World War II.[15]
- 1948: The United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Paris by a vote of 48-0 with eight abstentions, articulating 30 articles on civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights as a common standard for all nations.[16]
- 1950: Ralph Bunche became the first African American to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, recognized for mediating the 1948 Arab-Israeli armistice agreements as UN principal secretary.[15]
- 1964: Martin Luther King Jr. was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for nonviolent resistance to racial injustice in the U.S. civil rights movement, accepting it on behalf of the movement's participants.
- 1999: Ahmed Zewail received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for femtochemistry studies of chemical reactions on femtosecond timescales, becoming the first Arab American laureate in a science category.[7]
Deaths
Pre-1600
On December 10, 1041, Byzantine Emperor Michael IV succumbed to dropsy in Constantinople, prompting his wife, Empress Zoe, to proclaim their adopted son as Emperor Michael V amid palace intrigues that would soon lead to Zoe's own deposition.[8] The League of Cambrai was formalized on December 10, 1508, uniting Pope Julius II, King Louis XII of France, Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, and King Ferdinand II of Aragon in a pact to dismantle Venetian dominance in northern Italy, marking a pivotal anti-Venetian coalition in the Italian Wars.[9] Portuguese admiral Afonso de Albuquerque secured the conquest of Goa on December 10, 1510, defeating forces of the Bijapur Sultanate after a brief loss and recapture, establishing the city as a strategic Portuguese enclave in India despite subsequent resistance and massacres of Muslim inhabitants.[10] On December 10, 1520, reformer Martin Luther and supporters publicly incinerated Pope Leo X's bull Exsurge Domine—issued the prior June demanding his recantation of 41 theses deemed heretical—in Wittenberg's marketplace, an act of defiance that escalated his breach with the Catholic Church and advanced the Protestant Reformation.[11]1601–1900
In 1652, during the First Anglo-Dutch War, the Dutch fleet under Lieutenant-Admiral Maarten Tromp defeated the English navy in the Battle of Dungeness off the Kent coast; the engagement, fought on 30 November Old Style (equivalent to 10 December New Style), marked a significant Dutch victory that boosted their naval position early in the conflict.[12] On 10 December 1684 (Old Style), Edmond Halley presented Isaac Newton's tract De motu corporum in gyrum to the Royal Society in London; the paper outlined Newton's derivation of Kepler's laws from a universal gravitational force, laying foundational groundwork for the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica published two years later.[13] John Jay, former chief justice of the New York Supreme Court, was elected president of the Continental Congress on 10 December 1778, succeeding Henry Laurens amid the American Revolutionary War; Jay served until 1779, focusing on diplomatic efforts and financial reforms for the fledgling confederation. Mississippi was admitted as the 20th state of the United States on 10 December 1817, under an enabling act passed by Congress earlier that year; the admission followed the acquisition of territory via the Louisiana Purchase and reflected the expansion of slaveholding states in the antebellum era. The Wyoming territorial legislature passed a bill on 10 December 1869 granting women the right to vote in all elections, making Wyoming the first jurisdiction in the U.S. to enact full female suffrage; this progressive measure, retained upon statehood in 1890, predated the national 19th Amendment by half a century. The Treaty of Paris was signed on 10 December 1898 by representatives of the United States and Spain, formally ending the Spanish-American War; the agreement ceded Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines to the U.S. for $20 million, while Cuba gained nominal independence under U.S. influence, marking the decline of Spanish colonial power.1901–present
On December 10, 1901, the first Nobel Prizes were awarded in Stockholm, Sweden, in the categories of physics to Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen for his discovery of X-rays, chemistry to Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff for laws of chemical dynamics and osmotic pressure, physiology or medicine to Emil Adolf von Behring for serum therapy against diphtheria, literature to Sully Prudhomme for poetic compositions, and peace jointly to Henry Dunant for founding the Red Cross and Frédéric Passy for promoting peace congresses.[3] Since then, Nobel Prize award ceremonies have been held annually on December 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death in 1896, with prizes presented in Stockholm for physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, and economics (added in 1969), and the peace prize in Oslo.[14]- 1920: U.S. President Woodrow Wilson received the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in ending World War I and founding the League of Nations, despite U.S. Senate rejection of the Treaty of Versailles.[7]
- 1941: Japanese aircraft sank the British battleships HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse off Malaya, marking the first major naval loss to air power alone in history and weakening Allied defenses in Southeast Asia early in World War II.[15]
- 1948: The United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Paris by a vote of 48-0 with eight abstentions, articulating 30 articles on civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights as a common standard for all nations.[16]
- 1950: Ralph Bunche became the first African American to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, recognized for mediating the 1948 Arab-Israeli armistice agreements as UN principal secretary.[15]
- 1964: Martin Luther King Jr. was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for nonviolent resistance to racial injustice in the U.S. civil rights movement, accepting it on behalf of the movement's participants.
- 1999: Ahmed Zewail received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for femtochemistry studies of chemical reactions on femtosecond timescales, becoming the first Arab American laureate in a science category.[7]