On This Day in History ~ 10 December

Quarto Idus Decémbris Luna nona Anno Dómini 2024

December 10th 2024, the 9th day of the Moon

• 1317 – The "Nyköping Banquet": King Birger of Sweden treacherously seizes his two brothers Valdemar, Duke of Finland and Eric, Duke of Södermanland, who were subsequently starved to death in the dungeon of Nyköping Castle.
• 1508 – The League of Cambrai is formed by Pope Julius II, Louis XII of France, Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor and Ferdinand II of Aragon as an alliance against Venice.
• 1520 – The heresiarch, Martin Luther, burns his copy of the papal bull Exsurge Domine outside Wittenberg's Elster Gate.
• 1541 – Thomas Culpeper and Francis Dereham are executed for having affairs with Catherine Howard, Queen of England and wife of Henry VIII.

• 1652 – Defeat at the Battle of Dungeness causes the military dictatorship called the Commonwealth of England to reform its navy.
• 1665 – The Royal Netherlands Marine Corps is founded by Michiel de Ruyter.
• 1684 – Isaac Newton's derivation of Kepler's laws from his theory of gravity, contained in the paper De motu corporum in gyrum, is read to the Royal Society by Edmond Halley.
• 1768 – The first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica is published.
• 1799 – France adopts the metre as its official unit of length.
• 1861 – American Civil War: The Confederate States of America accept a rival state government's pronouncement that declares Kentucky to be the 13th state of the Confederacy.
• 1861 – Forces led by Nguyễn Trung Trực, an anti-colonial guerrilla leader in southern Vietnam, sink the French lorcha L'Esperance.
• 1864 – American Civil War: Sherman's March to the Sea: War Criminal Major General William Tecumseh Sherman's Union Army troops reach the outer Confederate defenses of Savannah, Georgia.
• 1877 – Russo-Turkish War: The Russian Army captures Plevna after a 5-month siege. The garrison of 25,000 surviving Turks surrenders. The Russian victory is decisive for the outcome of the war and the Liberation of Bulgaria.
• 1896 – Alfred Jarry's Ubu Roi premieres in Paris. A riot breaks out at the end of the performance.
• 1898 – Spanish–American War: The Treaty of Paris is signed, officially ending the conflict. Spain cedes administration of Cuba to the United States, and the United States agrees to pay Spain $20 million for the Philippines.

• 1901 – The first Nobel Prize ceremony is held in Stockholm on the fifth anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death.
• 1902 – The opening of the reservoir of the Aswan Dam in Egypt.
• 1906 – U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in the mediation of the Russo-Japanese War, becoming the first American to win a Nobel Prize in any field.
• 1907 – The worst night of the Brown Dog riots in London, when 1,000 medical students, protesting against the existence of a memorial for animals that have been vivisected, clash with 400 police officers.
• 1909 – Selma Lagerlöf becomes the first female writer to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature.
• 1932 – Thailand becomes a constitutional monarchy.
• 1936 – Abdication Crisis: Edward VIII signs the Instrument of Abdication.
• 1941 – World War II: The Royal Navy capital ships HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse are sunk by Imperial Japanese Navy torpedo bombers near British Malaya.
• 1941 – World War II: Battle of the Philippines: Imperial Japanese forces under the command of General Masaharu Homma land on Luzon.
• 1942 – World War II: Government of Poland in exile send Raczyński's Note (the first official report on the Holocaust) to 26 governments who signed the Declaration by United Nations.
• 1948 – The Human Rights Convention is signed by the United Nations.
• 1949 – Chinese Civil War: The People's Liberation Army begins its siege of Chengdu, the last Kuomintang-held city in mainland China, forcing President of the Republic of China Chiang Kai-shek and his government to retreat to Taiwan.
• 1953 – British Prime Minister Winston Churchill receives the Nobel Prize in Literature.
• 1963 – Zanzibar gains independence from the United Kingdom as a constitutional monarchy, under Sultan Jamshid bin Abdullah.
• 1963 – An assassination attempt on the British High Commissioner in Aden kills two people and wounds dozens more.
• 1968 – Japan's biggest heist, the still-unsolved "300 million yen robbery", is carried out in Tokyo.
• 1978 – Arab–Israeli conflict: Prime Minister of Israel Menachem Begin and President of Egypt Anwar Sadat are jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
• 1983 – "Democracy", a/k/a oligarchy is restored in Argentina with the inauguration of President Raúl Alfonsín.
• 1984 – United Nations General Assembly recognizes the Convention against Torture.
• 1989 – Mongolian Revolution: At the country's first open pro-democracy public demonstration, Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj announces the establishment of the Mongolian Democratic Union.
• 1991 – Nursultan Nazarbayev is sworn in as the 1st President of Kazakhstan.
• 1991 – The Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic is renamed into the Republic of Kazakhstan.
• 1993 – The last shift leaves Wearmouth Colliery in Sunderland. The closure of the 156-year-old pit marks the end of the old County Durham coalfield, which had been in operation since the Middle Ages.
• 1994 – Rwandan genocide: Maurice Baril, military advisor to the U.N. Secretary-General and head of the Military Division of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, recommends that UNAMIR stand down.
• 1995 – The Israeli army withdraws from Nablus pursuant to the terms of Oslo Accord.
• 1996 – The new Constitution of South Africa is promulgated by the terrorist Nelson Mandela.
• 1999 – Helen Clark is sworn in as Prime Minister of New Zealand, the second woman to hold the post and the first following an election.
• 2014 – Palestinian minister Ziad Abu Ein is killed after the suppression of a demonstration by Israeli forces in the village (Turmus'ayya) in Ramallah.
• 2015 – Rojava conflict: The Syrian Democratic Council is established in Dêrik, forming the political wing of the Syrian Democratic Forces in northeast Syria.
• 2016 – Two explosions outside a football stadium in Istanbul, Turkey, kill 38 people and injure 166 others.
• 2017 – ISIL is defeated in Iraq.
• 2019 – The Ostrava hospital attack in Czechia results in eight deaths, including the perpetrator.