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On This Day: Obama accepts Nobel Peace Prize

On Dec. 10, 2009, President Barack Obama accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, urging attendees to reach for the world "as it ought to be."

By UPI Staff
Nobel Committee Chairman Thorbjorn Jagland (L) presents U.S. President Barack Obama with the Nobel Peace Prize medal and diploma during the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Raadhuset Main Hall at Oslo City Hall on December 10, 2009. File Photo by Pete Souza/The White House
1 of 5 | Nobel Committee Chairman Thorbjorn Jagland (L) presents U.S. President Barack Obama with the Nobel Peace Prize medal and diploma during the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Raadhuset Main Hall at Oslo City Hall on December 10, 2009. File Photo by Pete Souza/The White House | License Photo

Dec. 10 (UPI) -- On this date in history:

In 1768, Encyclopedia Britannica was first published.

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In 1817, Mississippi joined the United States as the 20th state.

In 1869, the Territory of Wyoming granted women the right to vote.

In 1884, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain was published.

In 1898, Spain signed a treaty officially ending the Spanish-American War. It gave Guam, Puerto Rico and the Philippines to the United States.

In 1901, the Nobel Prizes were first awarded in Oslo, Norway, and Stockholm, Sweden.

In 1906, U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt became the first American to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Photo courtesy the Museum of Photography at the University of California

In 1936, Britain's King Edward VIII abdicated to marry American divorcee Wallis Warfield Simpson. His brother succeeded to the throne as King George VI.

In 1941, Japanese troops landed on northern Luzon in the Philippines in the early days of World War II.

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In 1950, U.S. diplomat Ralph Joseph Bunche received the Nobel Peace Prize for his peace mediation during the first Arab-Israeli war. He was the first African-American to win the award.

In 1984, the National Science Foundation reported the discovery of the first planet outside the solar system -- 21 million light-years from Earth.

In 1990, communists won a major victory in the first postwar multiparty elections in the Yugoslavian republics of Serbia and Montenegro.

In 2002, the Roman Catholic diocese of Manchester, N.H., admitted responsibility for failing to protect children from abusive priests.

In 2005, Richard Pryor, who pushed the envelope on racial themes and vulgarity in standup and movie comedy, died of cardiac arrest. He was 65.

In 2006, Gen. Augusto Pinochet, the former president of Chile who seized power in a bloody 1973 coup and ruled the nation for 17 years, died at the age of 91.

File Photo by Cristobal Arjona/UPI
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In 2009, President Barack Obama accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, urging attendees to reach for the world "as it ought to be."

In 2010, Chinese dissident and Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo, represented by a portrait and an empty chair, was honored during the Nobel presentations in Oslo, Norway. Liu was in a northeastern China prison serving an 11-year sentence for subversion and his family was forbidden from attending the ceremony.

In 2011, Western countries and the U.N. urged calm in the Democratic Republic of Congo after President Joseph Kabila was declared the winner in disputed elections.

In 2013, Mary Barra became CEO of General Motors, the first woman to head a major automotive company.

In 2016, Bob Dylan skipped the ceremony to receive his Nobel Prize for literature in Stockholm, saying he had "pre-existing commitments." The singer picked up the award in April 2017.

File Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI
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