[Amnorix]

December 10

1864. Having marched across Georgia leaving only havoc and destruction in their wake, the forces of General Sherman reach the outer defenses of the city of Savannah, Georgia.

1901. The first Nobel Prizes are awarded.

1906. President Roosevelt wins the Nobel Peace Prize, becoming the first American to win a Nobel Prize.

1935. The Downtown Athletic Club Trophy, later renamed the Heisman Trophy, is awarded for the first time, to the immortal Jay Berwanger of the University of Chicago.

1941. The British battleship Prince of Wales and Battlecruiser HMS Repulse, the centerpieces of the British Navy's most powerful naval forces in the Pacific/Indian theater, are sunk by Japanese aircraft. It is an early and painful lesson that airpower has reached ascendancy in naval matters and that even the best capital ships are extremely vulnerable if they are unaccompanied by air power.

1941. Japanese troops begin landing on the Phillipines. History will largely go on to ignore MacArthur's rather fumbling defense of the islands, in particular his loss of American airpower in much the same manner as that which got the commander general in Hawaii fired and accused of gross stupidity.

1949. The Communist forces of the People's Republic of China begin their assault on the last nationalist strongholder of Chiang Kai Shek on the mainland, forcing him to retreat to Formosa/Taiwan.