Events in History
Historic Event
Dec 3 Willis Carrier presents his influential "Rational Psychrometric Formulae" on air conditioning to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers
Nobel Prize
Dec 10 Belgium poet and playwright Maurice Maeterlinck is presented in absentia with the Nobel Prize for Literature
- Dec 12 Delhi replaces Calcutta as the capital of India.
Heartbreak and Tragedy for Captain Scott
Dec 14 Norwegian Roald Amundsen's expedition is the 1st to each the South Pole
Election of Interest
Dec 29 Sun Yat-sen elected 1st President of the Republic of China
- Dec 29 Mongolia gains independence from the Qing dynasty
Nobel Prize
Dec 31 Marie Curie receives her second Nobel Prize, this time in Chemistry, for her work with radioactivity
Birthdays in History
- Dec 5 Alfred Manessier, French painter (leaded windows), born in Saint-Ouen, Somme, France (d. 1993)
- Dec 6 Alfred James Broomhall, British Protestant Christian medical missionary to China, born in Shandong, China (d. 1994)
- Dec 9 Ryūzō Sejima, Japanese army officer and educator, born in Toyama, Japan (d. 2007)
- Dec 11 Naguib Mahfouz, Egyptian novelist (Palace Walk, Sugar Street) and first Arabic writer to win a Nobel Prize (1988), born in Cairo, Egypt (d. 2006)
Kenneth Patchen
Dec 13 Kenneth Patchen, American poet and novelist (Cloth of the Tempest), born in Niles, Ohio (d. 1972)
- Dec 13 Trygve Haavelmo, Norwegian economist and 1989 Nobel laureate for his contributions to econometrics, born in Skedsmo, Norway (d. 1999)
- Dec 14 Ota Adler, Czech-British fur trader and founder (Federal Trust), born in Kraslice, Czechoslovakia (d. 1995)
- Dec 14 Hans von Ohain, German-American aerospace engineer, born in Dessau, Duchy of Anhalt German Empire (d. 1998)
- Dec 15 Nicholas P. Dallis, American psychiatrist and comic strip writer (Rex Morgan, M.D.), born in NYC, New York (d. 1991)
- Dec 18 Helen Vlachos, Greek newspaper publisher (closed her newspapers in protest at military junta), born in Athens, Greece (d. 1995)
- Dec 18 Jules Dassin, American film director (The Naked City; Night And The City; Rififi), blacklisted during McCarthy era, born in Middletown, Connecticut (d. 2008)
- Dec 20 Hortense Calisher, American novelist (Arts & Letters 1967), born in NYC, New York
- Dec 22 Grote Reber, American radio astronomer (1st parabolic radio telescope), born in Wheaton, Illinois (d. 2002)
- Dec 23 Niels Jerne, Danish immunologist (1984 Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology), born in London, England (d. 1994)
- Dec 24 Eric Briault, educationalist
- Dec 24 Malcolm MacEwen, Scottish conservationist & communist activist, born in Inverness, Scotland (d. 1996)
- Dec 25 Louise Bourgeois, French American artist (Femme Maison), born in Paris, France (d, 2010)
- Dec 26 Renato Guttuso, Italian painter (Flight From Etna; Crucifixion), theater set designer, and politician, born in Bagheria, Sicily, Italy (d. 1987)
- Dec 26 Steve Kordek, American pinball machine designer, born in Chicago, Illinois (d. 2012)
- Dec 31 Dal Stivens, Australian novelist, born in Blayney, Australia (d. 1997)