Browse Historical Events by Day: What Happened on December 10th?

Martin Luther throws a copy of the Papal bull, Exsurge Domine (“Arise O Lord”) into a bonfire Upon the expiration of the 60-day period stipulated in the bull which had been promulgated on 15 June 1520 by Pope Leo X in response to the teachings of Martin Luther which opposed the views of the Catholic Church. Luther refused to recant and continued to rebuke the papacy. As a result, Luther was excommunicated on Jan 3, 1521. More

Isaac Newton's manuscript "On the motion of bodies in an orbit"; (De Motu) which he had sent to Edmond Halley, is read to the Royal Society.at in November 1684. This manuscript gave important mathematical derivations relating to the three relations now known as "Kepler's laws of planetary motion" which before Newton's work had not been generally regarded as scientific laws). After further encouragement from Halley, Newton went on to develop and write his book Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Principia) which includes nearly all of the manuscript content. More

The Encyclopedia Britannica is first published and advertised for sale in Edinburgh, Scotland. It is the oldest continuously published and revised work in the English language. More

The French revolutionary government declares the metric system to be the official system of weights and measures.

Mississippi is admitted into the United States Union becoming the 20th State.

The Treaty of Paris is signed by representatives of Spain and the United States, concluding the Spanish-American War.

The first awarding of five Nobel Prizes take place. Four of them were given out in Stockholm and one, the Peace Prize, in Christiania, as Oslo was then called. Alfred Nobel had died in San Remo, five years earlier. Since 1901, the Nobel Prizes have been presented to new laureates at ceremonies on December 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death. More

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris. A milestone document in the history of human rights, it sets out, for the first time, fundamental human rights to be universally protected as a common standard of achievements for all peoples and all nations. More

The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded to Linus Pauling for his work in campaigning against nuclear weapons testing.

Zanzibar (now part of Tanzania) gains independence from British colonial rule.

The United Nations General Assembly adopts the Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his leadership in the American civil rights movement.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. receives the Nobel Peace Prize for his nonviolent civil rights activism. More

South African President Nelson Mandela signs a new constitution that completes a transition from a long period of white minority rule (apartheid) to full-fledged democracy. More