Enrico Fermi (1901–1954) was an Italian-American physicist who was awarded the 1938 Nobel Prize in Physics. He created the world's first nuclear reactor, Chicago Pile-1, and is one of 16 scientists who have elements named after them. One of the few physicists to excel in both theoretical and experimental work, he made significant contributions to quantum theory, statistical mechanics, and nuclear and particle physics. He helped formulate the Fermi–Dirac statistics for particles that obey Wolfgang Pauli's exclusion principle, called "fermions". His theory of beta decay correctly predicted that a particle he named the "neutrino" would be emitted along with an electron, satisfying the law of conservation of energy. He left Italy in 1938 to escape the Italian racial laws that affected his Jewish wife Laura, and emigrated to the United States. He worked on the Manhattan Project during World War II, but later opposed development of the hydrogen bomb on moral and technical grounds. (Full article...)

Li Minhua

• ... that while raising two young children, Li Minhua (pictured) became the first woman to earn a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering at MIT?
• ... that though Landsat 4 suffered a second failure in 1993 that stopped it from transmitting most scientific data, it continued broadcasting telemetry, tracking, and command data until 2001?
• ... that the footballer Ted Gorin scored Scunthorpe United's first goal in the Football League?
• ... that the worm Polydora glycymerica bores into the shell of bivalve molluscs, mainly Glycymeris yessoensis, and lives inside it?
• ... that Angela Brower performed her signature role as Octavian at the Colombian premiere of Richard Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier?
• ... that the French submarine X was the first to use twin shafts?
• ... that Chinese film director Lü Ban was banned from film-making for life for his satirical comedies, the last of which, also banned, discussed the topic of film censorship?
• ... that the Provisional Army of the United States had only seven officers?

Asteroid 101955 Bennu

• The sample-return spacecraft OSIRIS-REx arrives at the asteroid 101955 Bennu (pictured).
• Former U.S. President George H. W. Bush dies at the age of 94.
• Magnus Carlsen defeats Fabiano Caruana to retain the World Chess Championship.
• NASA's InSight successfully lands on Mars.
• Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko declares martial law after Russian forces seize three ships in the disputed Kerch Strait near Crimea.

December 10: Human Rights Day; Nobel Banquet

The original brown dog statue

• 1684 – Edmond 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.
• 1898 – The Spanish–American War ended with the signing of the Treaty of Paris, with Spain recognizing the independence of Cuba and ceding Guam, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico to the United States.
• 1907 – During the Brown Dog affair, about 1,000 protesters marched through London and then clashed with 400 police officers in Trafalgar Square over the existence of a memorial (pictured) for animals that had been vivisected.
• 1942 – Edward Raczyński of the Polish government-in-exile issued a note that was the first official report on the Holocaust.
• 1978 – Starring Christopher Reeve in the title role, Superman, the first big-budget Superman film, premiered in Washington, D.C.

María Bibiana Benítez (b. 1783) · C. Rajagopalachari (b. 1878) · Ziad Abu Ein (d. 2014)