A tornado strikes an Amazon warehouse during increased holiday demand, killing six sheltering workers.
10 December 1611
A Saturday in history
Weekday
Saturday
Season
Winter (N. Hemisphere)
Century
17th century
Records
392
2021
1993The video game Doom, later considered the "father" of the first-person shooter genre, is released.
1992Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan establishes the Marriage Fund in the United Arab Emirates in response to rising wedding prices.
1989At the first open pro-democracy demonstration in Mongolia, journalist Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj announced the formation of the Mongolian Democratic Union, which would be instrumental in ending communist rule four months later.
1983Raúl Alfonsín (pictured) became the first democratically elected president of Argentina to take office after more than seven years of military dictatorship.
1970Around the northern Thai village of Mae Salong, remnants of Chinese anti-communist forces now fighting on behalf of the Thai government launched a five-year campaign against local communist insurgents.
- 1967
Soul and blues singer, Otis Redding, along with members of his back-up group, The Bar-Kays, are killed when their helicopter crashes in Lake Monona in Madison, Wisconsin.
1942Edward Raczyński of the Polish government-in-exile issued a note that was the first official report on the Holocaust.
1941Second World War: The Royal Navy capital ships HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse were sunk by Imperial Japanese Navy torpedo bombers east of Malaya.
1936Edward VIII, desiring to marry the American socialite Wallis Simpson against widespread British opposition, signed the instrument of abdication to renounce the throne in favour of his brother George VI.
1932The conclusion of the Emu War, after the Australian Government ordered the withdrawal of all Australian forces from the conflict.
1911Calbraith Perry Rodgers completed the first transcontinental flight across the United States.
1907During the Brown Dog affair, protesters marched through London and clashed with police officers in Trafalgar Square over the existence of a memorial for animals that had been vivisected.
1901On the fifth anniversary of the death of their founder, Swedish chemist and industrialist Alfred Nobel, the first Nobel Prizes were awarded in Stockholm.
1890The New York World Building, the then-tallest building in the United States at a height of 110 meters, was completed in New York City.
- 1884
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Finn depicted) by American author Mark Twain was first published in the United Kingdom and Canada, two months earlier than in the US.
1861Militia forces led by Nguyễn Trung Trực, an anti-colonial leader in southern Vietnam, sank the French lorcha L'Esperance.
1848Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte won France's first presidential election, and was elected as the first and only president of the French Second Republic.
1768The first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica was released in Edinburgh.
1684Edmond Halley presented the paper De motu corporum in gyrum, containing Isaac Newton's derivation of Kepler's laws from his theory of gravity, to the Royal Society.
1508The Papal States, France, Aragon and the Holy Roman Empire formed the League of Cambrai, an alliance against the Republic of Venice.
Photo archive
24 historic images from this day — tap to open the gallery.
What was life like?
Prices, jobs, food, music and everyday routine — the world as it felt to live in.
Sources & fact check
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