Historical Events
- Dec 17 Anaheim Township created in Los Angeles County
- Dec 20 South Carolina declared an "independent commonwealth" and secedes from the Union (US Civil War)
- Dec 24 Actor Joseph Jefferson's dramatization of "Rip Van Winkle" premieres in NYC
Historic Event
Dec 26 Maiden voyage of 1st steamship owned by 1 man (Cornelius Vanderbilt)
Historic Event
Dec 28 Harriet Tubman arrives in Auburn, New York, on her last mission to free slaves, having evaded capture for 8 years on the Underground Railroad
- Dec 29 The first British seagoing iron-clad warship, HMS Warrior is launched
Famous Birthdays
- Dec 2 Charles Studd, English cricket all-rounder (5 Tests; Middlesex) and missionary (Cambridge Seven), born in Spratton, England (d. 1931)
- Dec 7 Joseph Cook, 6th Prime Minister of Australia, born in Silverdale, Staffordshire, England (d. 1947)
- Dec 13 Lucien Guitry, French actor (La Dame aux camélias), born in Paris, France (d. 1925)
- Dec 15 Niels Ryberg Finsen, Danish-Farosese physician and phototherapist (Nobel Prize for Medicine 1903 for treatment for Lupus), born in Tórshavn, Faroe Islands (d. 1904)
- Dec 15 Abner Powell, American baseball utility, team owner and executive (first to use infield tarpaulin after rain), born in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania (d. 1953)
- Dec 18 Edward Alexander MacDowell, American composer (Indian Suite), born in New York (d. 1908)
- Dec 20 Dan Leno [George Wild Galvin], English comedian & stage actor, born in Somers Town, London (d. 1904)
- Dec 21 Henrietta Szold, U.S. Jewish Zionist leader & founder of Hadassah, born in Baltimore, Maryland (d. 1945)
- Dec 22 Austin Norman Palmer, American penmanship innovator, born in Fort Jackson, New York (d. 1927)
- Dec 23 Harriet Monroe, American poet and editor of Poetry magazine (You & I), born in Chicago, Illinois
- Dec 25 Manuel Dimech, Maltese philosopher and social reformer (d. 1921)
