On this day: December 10
POSTED: 12:41 AM PST Dec 09, 2012
UPDATED: 11:00 PM PST Dec 09, 2012
"Huckleberry Finn" is first published, the first Nobel Prizes are awarded, the first transcontinental flight ends, Playboy debuts, and "Avatar" premieres in theaters, all on this day.
The National Archives
1936: King Edward VIII signs the Instrument of Abdication, giving up his throne to marry Wallis Simpson, an American socialite who was divorced from her first husband and was pursuing a divorce of her second. Edward was succeeded as king by his brother Albert, from then on known as King George VI. He remains the only British monarch to have voluntarily renounced the throne since the Anglo-Saxon period.
