In History, Today on December 10

Martin Luther publicly burned the papal bull Exsurge Domine, which threatened him with excommunication unless he recanted his views. This act was a significant moment in the Protestant Reformation.

The Treaty of Paris was signed, officially ending the Spanish-American War. Spain relinquished its claims over Cuba and ceded Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines to the United States.

The first Nobel Prizes were awarded in Stockholm, Sweden, in the fields of Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Literature, and Peace, in accordance with the will of Alfred Nobel.

Edward VIII signed the Instrument of Abdication, renouncing the British throne to marry Wallis Simpson, an American divorcee.

The United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a milestone document in the history of human rights.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. received the Nobel Peace Prize for his nonviolent struggle against racial segregation and discrimination in the United States.

South African Bishop Desmond Tutu received the Nobel Peace Prize for his role as a unifying leader in the campaign to resolve the problem of apartheid in South Africa.

Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerk were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to peacefully end apartheid and establish a new democratic South Africa.

Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres, and Yitzhak Rabin received the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to create peace in the Middle East, particularly through the Oslo Accords.

South African President Nelson Mandela signed the new constitution into law, establishing a democratic government.

The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the United Nations and its Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, for their work for a better organized and more peaceful world.

The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank for their efforts to create economic and social development from below through microcredit.

The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Al Gore for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change.

The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Barack Obama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.

The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Liu Xiaobo for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China.

The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded jointly to Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzai for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education.

Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition, although he did not attend the ceremony.

The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its groundbreaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons.

The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory panel endorsed the emergency use of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, paving the way for its approval and distribution.