December 10th

President Barack Obama accepted the Nobel Peace Prize with a humble acknowledgment of his scant accomplishments and a robust defense of the U.S. at war.

NFL star Michael Vick was sentenced to 23 months in prison for bankrolling a dogfighting operation and killing dogs that underperformed.

A U.S. passenger jet landed in Vietnam, the first one to do so since the Vietnam War ended nearly three decades earlier.

Former President Jimmy Carter accepted the Nobel Peace Prize for his diplomacy in the Middle East in the 1970s.

Release of the first film in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The award winning movie called The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring was directed by Peter Jackson and was based on J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.

Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee was arrested and charged with stealing classified information.

The Palestinian leadership scrapped constitutional clauses rejecting Israel's right to exist.

Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin received the Nobel Peace Prize.

South African Bishop Desmond Tutu received the Nobel Peace Prize.

Rep. John W. Jenrette, D-S.C., resigned to avoid being expelled from the House following his conviction on charges related to the FBI's Abscam investigation.

Singer Otis Redding died at age 26 in the crash of his private plane in Wisconsin.

The Grateful Dead played their first concert, at the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco.

Nobel Peace Prize presented to Dr Martin Luther King Jr. in Oslo.

Dr. Ralph Bunche became the first black to receive a Nobel Peace Prize.

The United Nations General Assembly adopted its Universal Declaration on Human Rights.

Edward VIII signs Instrument of Abdication, giving up the British throne to marry American divoree Wallis Simpson.

The first Nobel Prizes were awarded in Stockholm, Sweden, in the fields of physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, and peace.

Spanish-American War formally ended by the Treaty of Paris; US acquires Philippines, Puerto Rico & Guam.

The territory of Wyoming authorized women to vote and hold office.

Mississippi was admitted to the union as the 20th state.

Isaac Newton's derivation of Kepler's laws from his theory of gravity, contained in the paper De motu corporum in gyrum, is read to the Royal Society by Edmond Halley.

Martin Luther publicly burned the papal edict demanding that he recant or face excommunication.