Historical Events
- Dec 17 Anaheim Township created in Los Angeles County
- Dec 18 South Carolina declared an "independent commonwealth"
- Dec 20 South Carolina secedes from the Union (US Civil War)
- Dec 24 Joseph Jefferson's "Rip Van Winkle" premieres in NYC
- Dec 26 Maiden voyage of 1st steamship owned by 1 man (C Vanderbilt)
- Dec 26 Major Robert Anderson, under cover of darkness, concentrates his small force at Ft Sumter
- Dec 26 First ever inter-club football match between Hallam F.C. and Sheffield F.C. at Sandygate Road ground in Sheffield, England
Event of Interest
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
Harriet Tubman
- 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 physician and phototherapist (Nobel 1903), born in Tórshavn, Faroe Islands (d. 1904)
- Dec 15 Abner Powell, American baseball player, 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, poet/editor of Poetry magazine (You & I), born in Chicago, Illinois
- Dec 25 Manuel Dimech, Maltese philosopher and social reformer (d. 1921)
- Dec 28 Alexander von Fielitz, composer
- Dec 31 Joseph S. Cullinan, American oil industrialist, born in Pennsylvania, United States (d. 1937)