10 December History
- 1817 - Mississippi is admitted as the 20th state.
- 1861 - Kentucky is admitted to the Confederate States of America.
- 1862 - The U.S. House of Representatives passes a bill creating the state of West Virginia.
- 1869 - Governor John Campbell signs the bill that grants women in Wyoming Territory the right to vote as well as hold public office.
- 1898 - The United States and Spain sign the Treaty of Paris, ceding Spanish possessions, including the Philippines, to the United States.
- 1917 - The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded to the International Red Cross.
- 1918 - U.S. troops are called to guard Berlin as a coup is feared.
- 1919 - Captain Ross Smith becomes the first person to fly 11,500 miles from England to Australia.
- 1936 - Edward VIII abdicates to marry Wallis Warfield Simpson, an American-born divorcee.
- 1941 - Japanese troops invade the Philippine island of Luzon.
- 1941 - The siege of Tobruk in North Africa is raised.
- 1943 - Franklin D. Roosevelt signs a bill that postpones a draft of pre-Pearl Harbor fathers.
- 1943 - Allied forces bomb Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria.
- 1949 - 150,000 French troops mass at the border in Vietnam to prevent a Chinese invasion.
- 1950 - Dr. Ralph J. Bunche becomes the first African-American to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
- 1977 - On UN Human Rights Day, the Soviet Union places 20 prominent dissidents under house arrest, cutting off telephones and threatening to break up a planned silent demonstration in Moscow's Pushkin Square. Soviet newspapers decry human rights violations elsewhere in the world.
10 December Birthdays
- 1830 - Emily Dickinson, American poet of more than 1,000 poems, seven published in her lifetime.
- 1851 - Melvil Dewey, American librarian who created the Dewey Decimal System.
- 1881 - Viscount Alexander of Tunis, British soldier who took his title from his part in the Allied victories in North Africa.
- 1891 - Nelly Sachs, Nobel Prize-winning poet.
- 1903 - Mary Norton, English children's author (Bedknobs and Broomsticks).
- 1907 - Rumor Godden, English novelist (Black Narcissus).
- 1908 - Oliver Messian, French composer (Quartet for the End of Time).
- 1911 - Chester "Chet" Huntley, American broadcast journalist.