1. On December 10, 1817, the University of Maryland was founded in Baltimore as "The Maryland College of Medicine." It later became the University of Maryland, Baltimore, and is now one of the state's flagship universities.

2. In 1864, a Confederate spy named John Wilkes Booth rented a room at the National Hotel in Washington D.C. on December 10. This would become a crucial part of his plan to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln a few months later.

3. December 10, 1948, marked the signing of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights in Paris. The document was drafted by a committee headed by former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, and its principles have since been incorporated into numerous international treaties and agreements.

4. In 1963, Maryland Governor J. Millard Tawes broke tradition by allowing a Christmas tree to be displayed in the State House rotunda. Previously, the State House had been strictly secular, but the governor's decision paved the way for other holiday displays in years to come.

5. On December 10, 2007, Senator Barbara Mikulski announced that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) would be awarding $111 million in research grants to the University of Maryland School of Medicine. The funds had already been earmarked by Congress for a variety of medical research projects, ranging from cancer to infectious diseases.