diff --git a/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.17.0.txt b/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.17.0.txt
index 8e03fe02bcc97..447a42c43d24e 100644
--- a/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.17.0.txt
+++ b/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.17.0.txt
@@ -393,5 +393,6 @@ Bug Fixes
 - Bug in operator equal on Index not being consistent with Series (:issue:`9947`)
 - Reading "famafrench" data via ``DataReader`` results in HTTP 404 error because of the website url is changed (:issue:`10591`).
 - Bug in `read_msgpack` where DataFrame to decode has duplicate column names (:issue:`9618`)
-
 - Bug in ``io.common.get_filepath_or_buffer`` which caused reading of valid S3 files to fail if the bucket also contained keys for which the user does not have read permission (:issue:`10604`)
+- Bug in vectorised setting of timestamp columns with python ``datetime.date`` and numpy ``datetime64`` (:issue:`10408`, :issue:`10412`)
+
diff --git a/pandas/core/internals.py b/pandas/core/internals.py
index 6a87f5a0b08e0..5953e783f6c4d 100644
--- a/pandas/core/internals.py
+++ b/pandas/core/internals.py
@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
 import itertools
 import re
 import operator
-from datetime import datetime, timedelta
+from datetime import datetime, timedelta, date
 from collections import defaultdict
 
 import numpy as np
@@ -1839,7 +1839,7 @@ def _try_coerce_args(self, values, other):
 
         if is_null_datelike_scalar(other):
             other = tslib.iNaT
-        elif isinstance(other, datetime):
+        elif isinstance(other, (datetime, np.datetime64, date)):
             other = lib.Timestamp(other).asm8.view('i8')
         elif hasattr(other, 'dtype') and com.is_integer_dtype(other):
             other = other.view('i8')
diff --git a/pandas/tests/test_frame.py b/pandas/tests/test_frame.py
index aeb28524e5cc1..4e78e1549fb0e 100644
--- a/pandas/tests/test_frame.py
+++ b/pandas/tests/test_frame.py
@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@
 from __future__ import print_function
 # pylint: disable-msg=W0612,E1101
 from copy import deepcopy
-from datetime import datetime, timedelta, time
+from datetime import datetime, timedelta, time, date
 import sys
 import operator
 import re
@@ -4248,6 +4248,16 @@ def test_datetimelike_setitem_with_inference(self):
         expected = Series([np.dtype('timedelta64[ns]')]*6+[np.dtype('datetime64[ns]')]*2,index=list('ABCDEFGH'))
         assert_series_equal(result,expected)
 
+    def test_setitem_datetime_coercion(self):
+        # GH 1048
+        df = pd.DataFrame({'c': [pd.Timestamp('2010-10-01')]*3})
+        df.loc[0:1, 'c'] = np.datetime64('2008-08-08')
+        self.assertEqual(pd.Timestamp('2008-08-08'), df.loc[0, 'c'])
+        self.assertEqual(pd.Timestamp('2008-08-08'), df.loc[1, 'c'])
+        df.loc[2, 'c'] = date(2005, 5, 5)
+        self.assertEqual(pd.Timestamp('2005-05-05'), df.loc[2, 'c'])
+
+
     def test_new_empty_index(self):
         df1 = DataFrame(randn(0, 3))
         df2 = DataFrame(randn(0, 3))
diff --git a/pandas/tests/test_internals.py b/pandas/tests/test_internals.py
index 6d2c87a187995..5a1eb719270c4 100644
--- a/pandas/tests/test_internals.py
+++ b/pandas/tests/test_internals.py
@@ -1,6 +1,8 @@
 # -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
 # pylint: disable=W0102
 
+from datetime import datetime, date
+
 import nose
 import numpy as np
 
@@ -286,6 +288,26 @@ def test_repr(self):
         pass
 
 
+class TestDatetimeBlock(tm.TestCase):
+    _multiprocess_can_split_ = True
+
+    def test_try_coerce_arg(self):
+        block = create_block('datetime', [0])
+
+        # coerce None
+        none_coerced = block._try_coerce_args(block.values, None)[1]
+        self.assertTrue(pd.Timestamp(none_coerced) is pd.NaT)
+
+        # coerce different types of date bojects
+        vals = (np.datetime64('2010-10-10'),
+                datetime(2010, 10, 10),
+                date(2010, 10, 10))
+        for val in vals:
+            coerced = block._try_coerce_args(block.values, val)[1]
+            self.assertEqual(np.int64, type(coerced))
+            self.assertEqual(pd.Timestamp('2010-10-10'), pd.Timestamp(coerced))
+
+
 class TestBlockManager(tm.TestCase):
     _multiprocess_can_split_ = True