Historical Events
- Dec 17 Anaheim Township created in Los Angeles County
- Dec 20 South Carolina General Assembly votes 169-0 to secede from the United States, declaring itself an "independent commonwealth". Is quickly followed by other Southern states triggering the American Civil War.
- Dec 24 Actor Joseph Jefferson's dramatization of "Rip Van Winkle" premieres in NYC
- Dec 26 First ever inter-club football match between Hallam F.C. and Sheffield F.C. at Sandygate Road ground in Sheffield, England
- Dec 26 Major Robert Anderson, under cover of darkness, concentrates his small force at Ft Sumter
Tubmans' Last Mission
Dec 28 Harriet Tubman arrives in Auburn, New York, on her last mission to free slaves, having evaded capture for 8 years on the Underground Railroad
- Dec 29 The first British seagoing iron-clad warship, HMS Warrior is launched
Famous Birthdays
- Dec 2 Charles Studd, English cricket all-rounder (5 Tests; Middlesex) and missionary (Cambridge Seven), born in Spratton, England (d. 1931)
- Dec 7 Joseph Cook, 6th Prime Minister of Australia, born in Silverdale, Staffordshire, England (d. 1947)
- Dec 13 Lucien Guitry, French actor (La Dame aux camélias), born in Paris, France (d. 1925)
- Dec 15 Abner Powell, American baseball utility, team owner and executive (first to use infield tarpaulin after rain), born in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania (d. 1953)
- Dec 15 Niels Ryberg Finsen, Danish-Farosese physician and phototherapist (Nobel Prize for Medicine 1903 for treatment for Lupus), born in Tórshavn, Faroe Islands (d. 1904)
- Dec 18 Edward Alexander MacDowell, American composer (Indian Suite), born in New York (d. 1908)
- Dec 20 Dan Leno [George Wild Galvin], English comedian and stage actor, born in Somers Town, London (d. 1904)
- Dec 21 Henrietta Szold, U.S. Jewish Zionist leader and founder of Hadassah, born in Baltimore, Maryland (d. 1945)
- Dec 22 Austin Norman Palmer, American penmanship innovator, born in Fort Jackson, New York (d. 1927)
- Dec 23 Harriet Monroe, American poet (You & I, A Poet's Life) and editor of Poetry magazine, born in Chicago, Illinois (d. 1936)
- Dec 25 Manuel Dimech, Maltese philosopher and social reformer (d. 1921)
- Dec 28 Alexander von Fielitz, German composer and conductor (Chicago Symphony Orchestra), born in Leipzig, Saxony (d. 1930)
- Dec 31 Joseph S. Cullinan, American oil industrialist, born in Pennsylvania, United States (d. 1937)
Famous Deaths
George Hamilton-Gordon (1784-1860)
Dec 14 4th Earl of Aberdeen, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (Peelite: 1852-55) and Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (1841-46), dies at 76
