- Dec 1 "The Great Train Robbery" the 1st Western film, released starring Justus D. Barnes and G. M. Anderson
- Dec 3 The Sultanate of Aceh's Panglima Polim surrenders to Dutch Army Captain Hendrikus Colijn at Atjeh
- Dec 6 Sumatra Atjehs guerilla leader Panglima Polim surrenders
- Dec 9 Norwegian parliament votes unanimiously for female suffrage
Curies Awarded Nobel
Dec 10 Nobel Prize for physics awarded to Pierre and Marie Curie for their study of spontaneous radiation
- Dec 11 British forces under MacDonald & Younghusband march into Tibet
- Dec 12 Roger Casement completes report about abuses in Belgian Congo
- Dec 14 England cricket batsman R. E. Foster completes 287 on debut in 1st Test against Australia at the Sydney Cricket Ground
- Dec 14 The Wright brothers attempt to fly the Wright Flyer for the first time at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina
- Dec 15 NY Wall Street vendor Italo Marchiony [Marcioni] granted patent for a mound for making ice cream cones
- Dec 16 Majestic Theater, NYC, becomes 1st in US to employ women ushers
- Dec 16 The Taj Mahal Palace & Tower hotel opens its doors to guests for the first time, in Bombay, British India
Wright Brother's 1st Flight
Dec 17 The Wright brothers make the first sustained motorized aircraft flight at 10:35 AM, piloted by Orville Wright at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina
"Glad of It"
Dec 28 Clyde Fitch's play "Glad of It" premieres in NYC
- Dec 29 French Equatorial Africa separates into Gabon, Chad and Ubangi-Shari (Central African Republic)
- Dec 30 American Political Science Association founded at New Orleans
- Dec 30 Electric arc lamp sets fire to Iroquois Theatre in Chicago, Illinois, leaving 602 dead in one of the deadliest single-building blazes in American history
Authors
Civil Rights Activists
Inventors
Kings
Revolutionaries
Scientists