On this day: December 10

Events on December 10

• 1508 The Papal States, France, Aragon and the Holy Roman Empire formed the League of Cambrai, an alliance against the Republic of Venice. Wikipedia
• 1684 Edmond Halley presented the paper De motu corporum in gyrum, containing Isaac Newton's derivation of Kepler's laws from his theory of gravity, to the Royal Society. Wikipedia
• 1768 The first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica was released in Edinburgh. Wikipedia
• 1817 Mississippi becomes the 20th U.S. state. Wikipedia
• 1848 Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte won France's first presidential election, and was elected as the first and only president of the French Second Republic. Wikipedia
• 1861 Militia forces led by Nguyễn Trung Trực, an anti-colonial leader in southern Vietnam, sank the French lorcha L'Esperance. Wikipedia
• 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. Wikipedia
• 1884 Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by American author Mark Twain was first published in the United Kingdom and Canada, two months earlier than in the US. Wikipedia
• 1890 The New York World Building, the then-tallest building in the United States at a height of 110 meters, was completed in New York City. Wikipedia
• 1901 On the fifth anniversary of the death of their founder, Swedish chemist and industrialist Alfred Nobel, the first Nobel Prizes were awarded in Stockholm. Wikipedia
• 1907 During the Brown Dog affair, protesters marched through London and clashed with police officers in Trafalgar Square over the existence of a memorial for animals that had been vivisected. Wikipedia
• 1909 Selma Lagerlöf becomes the first female writer to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. Wikipedia
• 1911 Calbraith Perry Rodgers completed the first transcontinental flight across the United States. Wikipedia
• 1932 The conclusion of the Emu War, after the Australian Government ordered the withdrawal of all Australian forces from the conflict. Wikipedia
• 1936 Edward VIII, desiring to marry the American socialite Wallis Simpson against widespread British opposition, signed the instrument of abdication to renounce the throne in favour of his brother George VI. Wikipedia
• 1941 Second World War: The Royal Navy capital ships HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse were sunk by Imperial Japanese Navy torpedo bombers east of Malaya. Wikipedia
• 1942 Edward Raczyński of the Polish government-in-exile issued a note that was the first official report on the Holocaust. Wikipedia
• 1953 British Prime Minister Winston Churchill receives the Nobel Prize in Literature. Wikipedia
• 1967 Soul and blues singer, Otis Redding, along with members of his back-up group, The Bar-Kays, are killed when their helicopter crashes in Lake Monona in Madison, Wisconsin. Wikipedia
• 1970 Around the northern Thai village of Mae Salong, remnants of Chinese anti-communist forces now fighting on behalf of the Thai government launched a five-year campaign against local communist insurgents. Wikipedia
• 1983 Raúl Alfonsín became the first democratically elected president of Argentina to take office after more than seven years of military dictatorship. Wikipedia
• 1989 At the first open pro-democracy demonstration in Mongolia, journalist Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj announced the formation of the Mongolian Democratic Union, which would be instrumental in ending communist rule four months later. Wikipedia
• 1992 Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan establishes the Marriage Fund in the United Arab Emirates in response to rising wedding prices. Wikipedia
• 1993 The video game Doom, later considered the "father" of the first-person shooter genre, is released. Wikipedia
• 2017 ISIL is defeated in Iraq. Wikipedia
• 2021 A tornado strikes an Amazon warehouse during increased holiday demand, killing six sheltering workers. Wikipedia

Born on December 10

• 1804 Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi, German mathematician and academic (died 1851) Wikipedia
• 1815 Ada Lovelace, English mathematician and computer scientist (died 1852) Wikipedia
• 1821 Nikolay Nekrasov, Russian poet and critic (died 1877) Wikipedia
• 1822 César Franck, Belgian organist and composer (died 1890) Wikipedia
• 1824 George MacDonald, Scottish minister, author, and poet (died 1905) Wikipedia
• 1830 Emily Dickinson, American poet (died 1886) Wikipedia
• 1870 Adolf Loos, Austrian architect and theoretician (died 1933) Wikipedia
• 1870 Pierre Louÿs, Belgian-French author and poet (died 1925) Wikipedia
• 1878 C. Rajagopalachari, Indian lawyer and politician, 45th Governor-General of India (died 1972) Wikipedia
• 1886 Victor McLaglen, English-American actor (died 1959) Wikipedia
• 1891 Nelly Sachs, German-Swedish poet and playwright, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1970) Wikipedia
• 1904 Antonín Novotný, Czechoslovak politician, President of Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (died 1975) Wikipedia
• 1908 Olivier Messiaen, French composer and ornithologist (died 1992) Wikipedia
• 1920 Clarice Lispector, Ukrainian-Brazilian journalist and author (died 1977) Wikipedia
• 1934 Howard Martin Temin, American geneticist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1994) Wikipedia
• 1944 Andris Bērziņš, Latvian businessman and politician, 8th President of Latvia Wikipedia
• 1957 Michael Clarke Duncan, American actor (died 2012) Wikipedia
• 1958 Cornelia Funke, German-American author Wikipedia
• 1960 Kenneth Branagh, British actor director, producer, and screenwriter Wikipedia
• 1982 Sultan Kösen, Turkish farmer, tallest living person Wikipedia
• 1987 Gonzalo Higuaín, French-Argentinian footballer Wikipedia
• 1988 Wilfried Bony, Ivorian footballer Wikipedia

Died on December 10

• 1475 Paolo Uccello, Italian painter (born 1397) Wikipedia
• 1865 Leopold I of Belgium (born 1790) Wikipedia
• 1896 Alfred Nobel, Swedish chemist and engineer, invented Dynamite and founded the Nobel Prize (born 1833) Wikipedia
• 1911 Joseph Dalton Hooker, English botanist and explorer (born 1817) Wikipedia
• 1928 Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Scottish architect and painter (born 1868) Wikipedia
• 1936 Luigi Pirandello, Italian dramatist, novelist, and poet Nobel Prize laureate (born 1867) Wikipedia
• 1967 Otis Redding, American singer-songwriter and producer (born 1941) Wikipedia
• 1968 Karl Barth, Swiss theologian and author (born 1886) Wikipedia
• 1987 Jascha Heifetz, Lithuanian-American violinist and educator (born 1901) Wikipedia
• 1999 Franjo Tuđman, Croatian general and politician, 1st President of Croatia (born 1922) Wikipedia
• 2005 Richard Pryor, American comedian, actor, producer, and screenwriter (born 1940) Wikipedia
• 2006 Augusto Pinochet, Chilean general and dictator, 30th President of Chile (born 1915) Wikipedia
• 2010 John Fenn, American chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1917) Wikipedia
• 2020 Tommy "Tiny" Lister Jr., American actor and wrestler (born 1958) Wikipedia

Holidays and observances

• Alfred Nobel Day or Nobeldagen (Sweden) Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Behnam, Sarah, and the Forty Martyrs (Syriac Orthodox Church) Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Eulalia of Mérida Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Gregory III Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Karl Barth (Episcopal Church (USA)) Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Polydore Plasden Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Thomas Merton (Episcopal Church (USA)) Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Translation of the Holy House of Loreto Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: December 10 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics) Wikipedia
• Constitution Day (Thailand) Wikipedia
• Human Rights Day (International) Wikipedia

Sources

• Wikipedia — “December 10” — events, births, deaths and observances (text under CC BY-SA 4.0) (checked 2026-10-15)
• Wikipedia — “Selected anniversaries/December 10” — the anniversaries editors chose for the date and the article each one is about (checked 2026-10-15)
• Wikidata — in how many language editions each entry's own article exists, used to fill the lists (CC0) (checked 2026-10-15)
• vacanza/holidays (open-source holiday rules, MIT licence) — holiday rules used to build the lists (checked 2026-10-15)

The events, births, deaths and observances above are from the English Wikipedia article “December 10” and the articles it links to (authors and history), retrieved 2026-10-15 through the Wikimedia “On this day” feed. They are licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0; this selection is shared under the same licence. Every anniversary that Wikipedia's editors selected for December 10 stays on the list; the remaining places, up to 26 events, 22 births and 14 deaths, go to the entries whose own article — about the event itself, or else the person or thing it is about — appears in the most language editions (counted from Wikidata); an article about a person or thing, which covers far more than one day, counts half. An entry with no article of its own counts, also at half, by the least covered article it links, and one that links only places counts for nothing. Each list runs by year, and the wording is unchanged apart from removing references to pictures, audio and video.