- Dec 2 Association of Football Players' and Trainers' Union (English Professional Football Players' Association) is formed by Charlie Roberts and Billy Meredith in Manchester, England
Boxing Title Fight
Dec 2 Canadian world heavyweight boxing champion Tommy Burns retains his title; KOs Englishman Gunner Moir in 10th round at the National Sporting Club, Covent Garden, London
Tommy Burns
- Dec 3 George Cohan's musical "Talk of the Town" premieres in NYC
- Dec 6 Coal mine explosions in Monongah, West Virginia kills 361
- Dec 7 Eugene Corri becomes 1st referee in a boxing ring
- Dec 7 The First Egyptian Nationalist Congress meets under the leadership of Mustafa Kamil Pasha
- Dec 8 King Gustaf V of Sweden accedes to the Swedish throne.
- Dec 9 First Christmas Seals sold (Wilmington, Delaware, post office)
- Dec 9 Gustav Mahler departs Vienna
Nobel Prize
Dec 10 Rudyard Kipling receives the Nobel prize for literature, the first English-language writer to do so
Rudyard Kipling
- Dec 10 The worst night of the Brown Dog riots in London, when 1,000 medical students clash with 400 police officers over the existence of a memorial for animals who have been vivisected.
- Dec 11 New Zealand Parliament Buildings almost completely destroyed by fire
- Dec 13 George Gunn scores 119 on Test debut v Australia SCG
Event of Interest
Dec 13 German Emperor Wilhelm II visits Amsterdam
Wilhelm II
- Dec 14 The schooner Thomas W. Lawson runs aground and founders near the Hellweather's Reef within the Scilly Isles in a gale. The pilot and 15 seamen die.
- Dec 15 In Persia, the Shah leads a coup de'etat against the liberal Prime Minister Nasir ul-Mulk and imprisons him, but a popular uprising forces the Shah to restore Nasir ul-Mulk soon after
- Dec 16 Eugene H Farrar is 1st to sing on radio (Bkln Navy Yard NY)
Great White Fleet
Dec 16 As a gesture of the US's new presence as a world power, President Theodore Roosevelt sends the 'Great White Fleet' on a round-the-world cruise, visiting ports internationally
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- Dec 17 Ugyen Wangchuck became 1st hereditary king of Bhutan
- Dec 19 239 workers died in a coal mine explosion in Jacobs Creek, Pennsylvania
- Dec 20 Explosion at Yolande Alabama, coal mine kills 91
- Dec 21 Dutch government of De Master falls due to war budget
- Dec 22 Saint-Saëns'/Fokine's ballet "Le Cygne" premieres in St Petersburg
- Dec 23 1st all-steel passengar railroad coach completed, Altoona, Pa
- Dec 30 Abraham Mills' commission declares Abner Doubleday invented baseball
- Dec 31 For 1st time a ball drops at Times Square to signal the New Year
- Dec 31 Gustav Mahler conducts the Metropolitan Opera