Today in History December 10

1817...................................................................		Mississippi is admitted 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.
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.
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.
1978......................................................................		President of Egypt Anwar Sadat and Prime Minister of Israel Menachem Begin are jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
1983......................................................................		Democracy restored to Argentina with the assumption of Raul Alfonsin.
1989......................................................................		Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj announces the establishment of Mongolia’s democratic movement that changes the second oldest communist country into a democracy.
1993......................................................................		The Wearmouth Colliery in Sunderland, East England, closes, marking the end of the County Durham coalfield, which had been in operation since the Middle Ages.
Born on December 10
1830......................................................................		Emily Dickinson, American poet of more than 1,000 poems, seven published in her lifetime.
1851........................................................................		Melvil Dewey, American librarian who created the Dewey Decimal System.
1881........................................................................		Viscount Alexander of Tunis, British soldier who took his title from his part in the Allied victories in North Africa.
1891........................................................................		Nelly Sachs, Nobel Prize-winning poet.
1903........................................................................		Mary Norton, English children’s author (Bedknobs and Broomsticks).
1907........................................................................		Rumor Godden, English novelist (Black Narcissus).
1908.......................................................................		Oliver Messian, French composer (Quartet for the End of Time).
1911........................................................................		Chester "Chet" Huntley, American broadcast journalist.
1914........................................................................		Dorothy Lamour, actress, best remembered for co-starring with Bing Crosby and Bob Hope in their "Road to" movie series.
1922........................................................................		Agnes Nixon, writer, producer; creator of long-running TV soap operas (One Life to Live, All My Children).
1934........................................................................		Howard Martin Temin, geneticist; shared 1975 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
1941........................................................................		Chad Stuart, singer, musician; half of the Chad & Jeremy folk rock duo.
1948........................................................................		Abu Abbas (Muhammad Zaidan, Muhammad Abbas), a founder of the Palestine Liberation Front; led terrorist hijacking of cruise ship Achille Lauro.
1956......................................................................		Rod Blagojevich, 40th Governor of Illinois; arrested on federal charges of trying to sell the US Senate seat of President-elect Barack Obama.