December 8

Simon Dubnow, historian of the Jewish people and author of a ten-volume world history, was killed in the Riga ghetto.

Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace), lyric poet of the Odes and author of the Ars Poetica, was born at Venusia in southern Italy.

Pope Pius IX promulgated the apostolic constitution Ineffabilis Deus, defining the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary.

The First Vatican Council opened in Rome under Pope Pius IX; it would go on to define papal infallibility.

Leonard William King, the British Museum Assyriologist known for his translations of the Code of Hammurabi and Babylonian creation texts, was born.

Pope Paul VI formally closed the Second Vatican Council in St. Peter's Square after three years of sessions on reform and renewal.

George Boole, the mathematician whose algebra of logic later became foundational to digital computing, died at Ballintemple near Cork, Ireland.