Some of the great historical events that happened today in history, on December 10th!
| 1817 | Mississippi was admitted to the union 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. |
| 1948 | The U.N. General Assembly adopted its Universal Declaration on Human Rights. |
| 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.  |
| 1965 | The Grateful Dead played their first concert, at the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco. |
| 1967 | Singer Otis Redding died at age 26 in the crash of his private plane in Wisconsin. |
| 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. |
| 1980 | Rep. John W. Jenrette, D-S.C., resigned to avoid being expelled from the House following his conviction on charges related to the FBI’s Abscam investigation. |
| 1984 | South African Bishop Desmond Tutu received the Nobel Peace Prize. |
| 1994 | Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin received the Nobel Peace Prize. |
| 1998 | Six astronauts opened the doors to the new international space station. |
| 1998 | The Palestinian leadership scrapped constitutional clauses rejecting Israel’s right to exist. |
| 2001 | “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring,” the first in a three-film adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic fantasy trilogy, premiered in London.  |
| 2002 | Former President Jimmy Carter accepted the Nobel Peace Prize for his diplomacy in the Middle East in the 1970s. |
| 2007 | Former Vice President Al Gore accepted the Nobel Peace Prize with a call for humanity to rise up against a looming climate crisis. |
| 2007 | NFL star Michael Vick was sentenced to 23 months in prison for bankrolling a dogfighting operation and killing dogs that underperformed. |
| 2007 | Cristina Fernandez was sworn in as Argentina’s first elected female president. |
| 2009 | President Barack Obama accepted the Nobel Peace Prize with a humble acknowledgment of his scant accomplishments and a robust defense of the U.S. at war. |
| 2009 | James Cameron’s 3-D film epic “Avatar” had its world premiere in London. |
Today in history facts are from various sites including, but not limited too: the History Channel, The New York Times, WHG Historynet.com, HistoryOrb.com, and On This Day blogs from my blogroll.
Today in History
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