MOMENTS IN TIME - The History Channel

* On Dec. 7, 1787, in Dover, Del., the U.S. Constitution is unanimously ratified by all 30 delegates to the Delaware Constitutional Convention, making Delaware the first state of the modern United States. Government under the U.S. Constitution took effect on March 4, 1789.

* On Dec. 10, 1901, the first Nobel Prizes are awarded in Stockholm, Sweden, on the fifth anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel. Although Nobel offered no public reason for his creation of the prizes, it is believed that he did so out of moral regret over the lethal uses of his invention of dynamite and other explosives....