Events in History
Nobel Prize
Dec 10 Dutch Physicist Johannes van der Waals wins the Nobel Prize for physics
- Dec 19 1st US city ordinance requiring white & black residential areas in Baltimore
- Dec 19 Rayon 1st commercially produced in Marcus Hook, Pennsylvania
- Dec 21 Explosion in coal mine in Hulton England, 344 mine workers dies
- Dec 22 US postal savings stamps 1st issued
- Dec 24 Luisa Tetrazzini sings to 250,000 people at Lotta's Fountain, San Francisco
- Dec 31 US tobacco industry produced 9 billion cigarettes in 1910
Birthdays in History
- Dec 1 Louis Slotin, Canadian Physicist and Chemist (Manhattan Project, Los Alamos) who assembled the plutonium core for 'Trinity', the first detonated atomic device, born in Winnipeg, Manitoba (d. 1946)
- Dec 2 Russell Lynes, American art historian, photographer, author and managing editor of Harper's Magazine (d. 1991)
- Dec 3 Robert Arthur Hughes, British missionary and surgeon who worked in India, born in Oswestry, England (d. 1996)
- Dec 4 R. [Ramaswamy] Venkataraman, Indian politician, eighth President of India (1987-92), born in Rajamadam, British India (d. 2009)
- Dec 9 Dick Elffers, Dutch graphic artist and painter (Holland Festival), born in Rotterdam, Netherlands (d. 1990)
- Dec 9 Stephen Jurika, American naval officer (WWII Doolittle raid over Tokyo), born in Los Angeles, California (d. 1993)
- Dec 11 Robert Grieve, Scottish civil servant and planner, born in Glasgow (d. 1995)
- Dec 13 Charles Alfred Coulson, British chemist (theoretical), born in Dudley, England (d. 1974)
Jean Genet (1910-1986)
Dec 19 French novelist (The Thief's Journal, Our Lady of the Flowers) and playwright (The Balcony, The Maids), born in Paris
- Dec 19 Jose Lezama Lima, Cuban poet and novelist, born in Havana, Cuba (d. 1976)
- Dec 21 Rosa Bouglione, French circus performer, born in Ixelles, Belgium (d. 2018)
- Dec 23 Kurt Meyer, German SS officer (d. 1961)
- Dec 24 Fritz [Reuter] Leiber Jr., American sci-fi author (Bazaar of the Bizarre), born in Chicago, Illinois (d. 1992)
- Dec 24 Max Miedinger, typeface designer, famous for creating Helvetica in 1957, born in Zürich, Switzerland (d. 1980)
- Dec 24 William "Bill" Pickering, NASA scientist (JPL), born in Wellington, New Zealand (d. 2004)
- Dec 26 Lucy Faithfull, British children's campaigner, born in South Africa (d. 1996)
- Dec 27 Charles Olson, American poet (The Maximus Poems), born in Worcester, Massachusetts (d. 1970)
- Dec 29 Ronald Coase, British economist (Nobel Prize in Economics 1991), born in Willesden, London (d. 2013)
- Dec 30 Paul Bowles, writer (The Shelting Sky), born in Queens, NYC, New York (d. 1999)
Weddings in History
Maxwell Perkins
Dec 31 Editor Maxwell Perkins (26) weds Louise Saunders at Holy Cross Episcopal Church in North Plainfield, New Jersey
Deaths in History
Mary Baker Eddy (1821-1910)
Dec 3 American founder of the religious movement, Christian Science (Science & Health), dies at 89
- Dec 8 George Doherty Johnston, American Brigadier General (Confederate Army), dies at 78
- Dec 31 Archibald Hoxsey, American pioneer aviator (worked for the Wright brothers), dies at 26
- Dec 31 John Bevins Moisant, American pioneer aviator, first to cross English Channel with passenger and a cat, killed in New Orleans whose present day airport was originally name for him, dies at 42
Authors
Civil Rights Activists
Inventors
Kings
Revolutionaries
Scientists