On This Day in History, December 10

2007 Argentina swears in first female elected President

Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner became the first elected female President of Argentina.

2001 Release of the first film in the Lord of the Rings trilogy

The award winning movie called The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring was directed by Peter Jackson and was based on J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.

1948 U.N. General Assembly adopts Universal Declaration on Human Rights

1901 First Nobel prize awarded

Five years after the death of Swedish chemist and inventor, Alfred Nobel's, the first Nobel Prizes were awarded.

1817 Mississippi becomes 20th state

Mississippi becomes 20th state in the United States

1956 Rod Blagojevich

American politician, 40th Governor of Illinois

1908 Olivier Messiaen

French composer, ornithologist

1878 C. Rajagopalachari

Indian lawyer, politician, 1st Governor General of India

1830 Emily Dickinson

American poet

1815 Ada Lovelace

English mathematician

2006 Augusto Pinochet

Chilean general, politician, 30th President of Chile

1999 Franjo Tuđman

Croatian general, politician, 1st President of Croatia

1967 Otis Redding

American singer-songwriter, producer

1951 Algernon Blackwood

English author

1896 Alfred Nobel

Swedish chemist, engineer, invented dynamite, founded the Nobel Prize