November 11

Historic Events

2024

A vehicle-ramming attack in Zhuhai, China, kills 38 people and injures 48. ›

2022

Russo-Ukrainian War: Ukrainian armed forces enter the city of Kherson following a successful two-month southern counteroffensive. ›

2020

Typhoon Vamco makes landfall in Luzon and several offshore islands, killing 67 people. The storm causes the worst floods in the region since Typhoon Ketsana in 2009. ›

2012

A strong earthquake with the magnitude 6.8 hits northern Burma, killing at least 26 people. ›

2011

A helicopter crash just outside Mexico City kills seven, including Francisco Blake Mora the Secretary of the Interior of Mexico. ›

2006

Queen Elizabeth II unveils the New Zealand War Memorial in London, United Kingdom, commemorating the loss of soldiers from the New Zealand Army and the British Army. ›

2004

New Zealand Tomb of the Unknown Warrior is dedicated at the National War Memorial, Wellington. ›

2004

The Palestine Liberation Organization confirms the death of Yasser Arafat from unidentified causes. Mahmoud Abbas is elected chairman of the PLO minutes later. ›

2002

A Fokker F27 Friendship operating as Laoag International Airlines Flight 585 crashes into Manila Bay shortly after takeoff from Ninoy Aquino International Airport, killing 19 people. ›

2002

Russian mathematician Grigori Perelman posts the first of three preprint texts with his proof of the Poincaré conjecture. It remains the only of the Millennium Prize Problems in mathematics to be solved. He later refused both the prize money from Clay Mathematics Institute as well as the Fields Medal for his work. ›

2001

Journalists Pierre Billaud, Johanne Sutton and Volker Handloik are killed in Afghanistan during an attack on the convoy they are traveling in. ›

2000

Kaprun disaster: One hundred fifty-five skiers and snowboarders die when a cable car catches fire in an alpine tunnel in Kaprun, Austria. ›

1999

The House of Lords Act is given Royal Assent, restricting membership of the British House of Lords by virtue of a hereditary peerage. ›

1993

A sculpture honoring women who served in the Vietnam War is dedicated at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. ›

1992

The General Synod of the Church of England votes to allow women to become priests. ›

1982

Space Shuttle Columbia launches from the Kennedy Space Center on STS-5, the first operational mission of the Space Shuttle program. ›

1981

Antigua and Barbuda joins the United Nations. ›

1977

A munitions explosion at a train station in Iri, South Korea kills at least 56 people. ›

1975

Australian constitutional crisis of 1975: Australian Governor-General Sir John Kerr dismisses the government of Gough Whitlam, appoints Malcolm Fraser as caretaker Prime Minister and announces a general election to be held in early December. ›

1975

Independence of Angola. ›

1972

Vietnam War: Vietnamization: The United States Army turns over the massive Long Binh military base to South Vietnam. ›

1968

Vietnam War: Operation Commando Hunt initiated. The goal is to interdict men and supplies on the Ho Chi Minh trail, through Laos into South Vietnam. ›

1967

Vietnam War: In a propaganda ceremony in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, three American prisoners of war are released by the Viet Cong and turned over to "new left" antiwar activist Tom Hayden. ›

1966

NASA launches Gemini 12. ›

1965

Southern Rhodesia's Prime Minister Ian Smith unilaterally declares the colony independent as the unrecognised state of Rhodesia. ›

1965

United Air Lines Flight 227 crashes at Salt Lake City International Airport, killing 43. ›

1962

Kuwait's National Assembly ratifies the Constitution of Kuwait. ›

1961

Thirteen Italian Air Force servicemen, deployed to the Congo as a part of the UN peacekeeping force, are massacred by a mob in Kindu. ›

1960

A military coup against President Ngô Đình Diệm of South Vietnam is crushed. ›

1949

The People's Liberation Army Air Force is founded. ›

1942

World War II: France's zone libre is occupied by German forces in Case Anton. ›

1942

The Turkish parliament passes the Varlık Vergisi, a capital tax mostly levied on non-Muslim citizens with the unofficial aim to inflict financial ruin on them and end their prominence in the country's economy. ›

1940

World War II: The German auxiliary cruiser Atlantis captures top secret British mail from the Automedon, and sends it to Japan. ›

1934

The Shrine of Remembrance is opened in Melbourne, Australia. ›

1930

Patent number US1781541 is awarded to Albert Einstein and Leó Szilárd for their invention, the Einstein refrigerator. ›

1926

The United States Numbered Highway System is established. ›

1923

Adolf Hitler is arrested in Munich for high treason for his role in the Beer Hall Putsch. ›

1921

The Tomb of the Unknowns is dedicated by U.S. President Warren G. Harding at Arlington National Cemetery. ›

1919

The Industrial Workers of the World attack an Armistice Day parade in Centralia, Washington, ultimately resulting in the deaths of five people. ›

1919

Latvian forces defeat the West Russian Volunteer Army at Riga in the Latvian War of Independence. ›

1918

World War I: Germany signs an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car in the forest of Compiègne. ›

1918

Józef Piłsudski assumes supreme military power in Poland – symbolic first day of Polish independence. ›

1918

Emperor Charles I of Austria relinquishes power. ›

1911

Many cities in the Midwestern United States break their record highs and lows on the same day as a strong cold front rolls through. ›

1889

The State of Washington is admitted as the 42nd state of the United States. ›

1887

Four convicted anarchists were executed as a result of the Haymarket affair. ›

1880

Australian bushranger Ned Kelly is hanged at Melbourne Gaol. ›

1869

The Victorian Aboriginal Protection Act is enacted in Australia, giving the government control of indigenous people's wages, their terms of employment, where they could live, and of their children, effectively leading to the Stolen Generations. ›

1865

Treaty of Sinchula is signed whereby Bhutan cedes the areas east of the Teesta River to the British East India Company. ›

1855

A powerful earthquake occurs in Edo, Japan, causing considerable damage in the Kantō region from the shaking and subsequent fires. It had a death toll of 7,000–10,000 people and destroyed around 14,000 buildings. ›

1839

The Virginia Military Institute is founded in Lexington, Virginia. ›

1831

In Jerusalem, Virginia, Nat Turner is hanged after inciting a violent slave uprising. ›

1813

War of 1812: Battle of Crysler's Farm: British and Canadian forces defeat a larger American force, causing the Americans to abandon their Saint Lawrence campaign. ›

1805

Napoleonic Wars: Battle of Dürenstein: Eight thousand French troops attempt to slow the retreat of a vastly superior Russian and Austrian force. ›

1778

Cherry Valley massacre: Loyalists and Seneca Indian forces attack a fort and village in eastern New York during the American Revolutionary War, killing more than forty civilians and soldiers. ›

1750

Riots break out in Lhasa after the murder of the Tibetan regent. ›

1750

The F.H.C. Society, also known as the Flat Hat Club, is formed at Raleigh Tavern, Williamsburg, Virginia. It is the first college fraternity. ›

1724

Joseph Blake, alias Blueskin, a highwayman known for attacking "Thief-Taker General" (and thief) Jonathan Wild at the Old Bailey, is hanged in London. ›

1688

The Dutch invasion fleet of William of Orange departs from the Dutch Republic for the second time, beginning the 1688 invasion of England. ›

1675

Gottfried Leibniz demonstrates integral calculus for the first time to find the area under the graph of y = ƒ(x). ›

1673

Second Battle of Khotyn in Ukraine: Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth forces under the command of Jan Sobieski defeat the Ottoman army. In this battle, rockets made by Kazimierz Siemienowicz are successfully used. ›

1634

Following pressure from Anglican bishop John Atherton, the Irish House of Commons passes An Act for the Punishment for the Vice of Buggery. ›

1620

The Mayflower Compact is signed in what is now Provincetown Harbor near Cape Cod. ›

1606

The peace treaty of Zsitvatorok ends the Long Turkish War between the Habsburg and the Ottoman empires. It stabilises the borderlands in Hungary and the Ottoman Sultan recognises the Holy Roman Emperor as his equal. ›

1572

Tycho Brahe observes the supernova SN 1572. ›

1500

Treaty of Granada: Louis XII of France and Ferdinand II of Aragon agree to divide the Kingdom of Naples between them. ›

1417

The election of pope Martin V at the Council of Constance ends the Western Schism. ›

1215

The Fourth Council of the Lateran meets, defining the doctrine of transubstantiation, the process by which bread and wine are, by that doctrine, said to transform into the body and blood of Christ. ›

1100

Henry I of England marries Matilda of Scotland, the daughter of Malcolm III of Scotland and a direct descendant of the Saxon king Edmund Ironside; Matilda is crowned on the same day. ›

1028

Constantine VIII dies, ending his uninterrupted reign as emperor or co-emperor of the Byzantine Empire of 66 years. ›

308

At Carnuntum, Emperor emeritus Diocletian confers with Galerius, Augustus of the East, and Maximianus, the recently returned former Augustus of the West, in an attempt to end the civil wars of the Tetrarchy. ›

109

Roman emperor Trajan celebrates his newly constructed naumachia with a display of ships and mock battles. ›