Dec 10 in History
1508 — The League of Cambrai is formed by Pope Julius II, Louis XII of France, the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I and Ferdinand II of Aragon as an alliance against the Republic of Venice.
1768 — The first part of the Encyclopaedia Britannica is published.
1902 — The Aswan Dam in Egypt, the largest masonry dam in the world at the time and the first dam across the River Nile, is opened.
1932 — Thailand becomes a constitutional monarchy, ending 150 years of absolute Chakri rule.
1953 — British Prime Minister Winston Churchill — who, between his terms as prime minister (1940-45 and 1951-55), wrote several books recounting his experience during World War 2 — receives the Nobel Prize in Literature.
1967 — Otis Redding (the “King of Soul”), 26, and six others (four members of the band Bar-Kays, their valet and the pilot) die when his Beechcraft H18 crashes into Lake Monona, Wisconsin. Redding and guitarist Steve Cropper had cowritten “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay”, which they recorded for the second time on December 7. It becomes the first posthumous No 1 record on both the Billboard Hot 100 and R&B charts.
1968 — The 300m yen robbery: In Japan’s biggest heist, a man posing as a police officer on a motorcycle stops bank employees transferring money and steals 294m yen. It remains unsolved. 1972 — Amnesty International, founded in
London in 1961, launches its Campaign for the Abolition of Torture, with the aim to make torture “as unthinkable as slavery”. It ‘‘stimulates’’ some governments to bring the question of torture before the UN General Assembly, which adopts a resolution that ‘‘rejects any form of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” on November 2 1973.
1991 — The Supreme Soviet of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic votes to dissolve itself. The Republic of Kazakhstan emerges, with Nursultan Nazarbayev as the first president. 1997 — The capital city is moved from Almaty to Astana.
1993 — The last shift leaves Wearmouth Colliery in Sunderland, England, marking the end of the old County Durham coalfield which had been in operation since the Middle Ages. Sunk from 1826 to 1834, Wearmouth was the deepest mine in the world (481m) when it began producing coal in 1835. The Stadium of Light, home to Sunderland AFC, is built on the site and opens in July 1997.