This Day in History

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December 10

Today is internationally observed as Human Rights Day, commemorating the UN General Assembly's proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on Dec 10, 1948.

Today is the 345th day of 2016, and there are 21 days remaining in the year.

There are 14 days until Christmas.


Events

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.

1520 – 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.

1684 – Isaac Newton's derivation of Kepler's laws from his theory of gravity, contained in the paper De motu corporum in gyrum (On the Motion of Bodies in an Orbit), is read to the Royal Society by Edmond Halley.

1799 – France adopts the metre as its official unit of length. Currently, the metre is defined as the distance travelled by light in a vacuum in 1/299 792 458ths seconds.

1817 – Mississippi becomes the 20th U.S. state. Welcome to the Union, Big Sarge.

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.

1864 – American Civil War: Sherman's March to the Sea: Major General William Tecumseh Sherman's Union Army troops reach the outer Confederate defenses of Savannah, Georgia.

1868 – The first traffic lights are installed, outside the Palace of Westminster in London. Resembling railway signals, they use semaphore arms and are illuminated at night by red and green gas lamps.

1884 – Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is published.

1901 – The first Nobel Prizes are awarded.

1906 – U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt wins the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in the mediation of the Russo-Japanese War, becoming the first American to win a Nobel Prize.

1948 – The Human Rights Convention is signed by the United Nations.

1953 – British Prime Minister Winston Churchill received the Nobel Prize in literature.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Prize_in_literature.

1955 – Mighty Mouse Playhouse premieres on American television.

1967 - American soul singer & songwriter Otis Redding was killed in a plane crash, aged 26. Redding and his band had made an appearance in Cleveland, Ohio on the local ‘Upbeat’ television show the previous day. The plane carrying Otis Redding and his band crashed at 3:28 pm into icy waters of Lake Monoma near Madison. Redding was killed in the crash along with members from the The Bar-Kays, Jimmy King, Ron Caldwell, Phalin Jones and Carl Cunningham. Trumpet player Ben Cauley was the only person to survive the crash.

1968 – Japan's biggest heist, the still-unsolved "300 million yen robbery", is carried out in Tokyo.

1971 - Playing the first of two nights at London's Rainbow Theatre, in England, Frank Zappa was pushed off stage by Trevor Howell, the jealous boyfriend of an audience member. Zappa fell onto the concrete-floored orchestra pit - the band thought Zappa had been killed. He suffered serious fractures, head trauma and injuries to his back, leg, and neck, as well as a crushed larynx, which ultimately caused his voice to drop a third after healing. This accident resulted in him using a wheelchair for an extended period, forcing him off the road for over half a year.

1973, The CBGB Club (Country, BlueGrass, and Blues), opened in the lower eastside of New York City. Founded by Hilly Kristal, it was originally intended to feature its namesake musical styles, but became a forum for American punk and New Wave bands.

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.

1999 - Bassist for The Band, Rick Danko died in his sleep at his home near Woodstock, New York.

Births

1787 – Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet (founded the American School for the Deaf); 1830 – Emily Dickinson; 1851 – Melvil Dewey (Dewey Decimal System); 1886 – Victor McLaglen; 1903 – Una Merkel; 1911 – Chet Huntley; 1914 – Dorothy Lamour; 1916 – Walt Arfons(half-brother to Art Arfons); 1926 – Guitar Slim; 1941 – Fionnula Flanagan; 1947 – Douglas Kenney (co-founded National Lampoon); 1951 – Johnny Rodriguez♪ ♫; 1952 – Susan Dey; 1956 – Rod Blagojevich; 1957 – Michael Clarke Duncan; 1958 – John J. York ('Scorpio' on General Hospital); 1959 – Wolf Hoffmann(Accept); 1960 – Kenneth Branagh; 1961 – Nia Peeples; 1964 – Bobby Flay; 1965 – Greg Giraldo; 1965 – J Mascis(Dinosaur Jr.); 1971 – Brian Nichols; 1974 – Meg White(The White Stripes); 1978 – Summer Phoenix (Russkies, SLC Punk!, sister to River & Joaquin Phoenix, married to Casey Affleck); 1985 – Raven-Symoné (The Cosby Show)

Deaths

1541 – Thomas Culpeper; 1541 – Francis Dereham (hanged, drawn, quartered); 1896 – Alfred Nobel (invented Dynamite and founded the Nobel Prize); 1909 – Red Cloud; 1920 – Horace Elgin Dodge (co-founded Dodge); 1946 – Damon Runyon; 1967 - Otis Redding♪ ♫; 1967 – Ronnie Caldwell(Bar-Kays); 1977 – Adolph Rupp(University of Kentucky basketball coach 1930 - 1972, namesake of UK's Rupp Arena); 1978 – Ed Wood; 1979 – Ann Dvorak; 1990 – Armand Hammer; 1990 – Armand Hammer (founded Occidental Petroleum); 1996 – Faron Young♪ ♫; 1999 – Rick Danko(The Band); 2002 – Ian MacNaughton (director/producer Monty Python's Flying Circus); 2005 – Richard Pryor; 2015 – Ron Bouchard