March 11

Events

• 1513 - Leo X is elected Pope.
• 1649 - The Frondeurs (rebels) and the French government sign the Peace of Rueil.
• 1702 - The first regular English-language newspaper, The Daily Courant, is published in London.
• 1824 - The United States War Department creates the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
• 1845 - The Flagstaff War: In New Zealand, Chiefs Hone Heke and Kawiti lead 700 Maoris to chop down the British flagpole and drive settlers out of the British colonial settlement of Kororareka because of breaches of the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi.
• 1861 - American Civil War: The Constitution of the Confederate States of America is adopted.
• 1864 - The Great Sheffield Flood: The largest man-made disaster ever to befall England kills over 250 people in Sheffield.
• 1888 - The Great Blizzard of '88 begins along the eastern seaboard of the United States, shutting down commerce and killing more than 400.
• 1897 - A meteorite enters the earth's atmosphere and explodes over New Martinsville, West Virginia. The debris causes damage but no human injuries are reported.
• 1900 - Boer War: Boer leader Paul Kruger's peace overtures are rejected by Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Lord Salisbury.
• 1917 - Baghdad falls to the Anglo-Indian forces commanded by General Maude.
• 1927 - In New York City, Samuel Roxy Rothafel opens the Roxy Theatre.
• 1936 - British Prime Minister pardons five convicted Irish militants who promise to join growing conflict with Germany.
• 1941 - World War II: President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signs the Lend-Lease Act into law, allowing American-built war supplies to be shipped to the Allies on loan.
• 1942 - World War II: General Douglas MacArthur abandons Corregidor.
• 1959 - In Cannes, France, Teddy Scholten wins the fourth Eurovision Song Contest for the Netherlands singing "Een beetje" (A little bit).
• 1966 - President Sukarno of Indonesia was forced to give up his executive power.
• 1966 - A fire at two ski resorts in Numata, Japan kills 31 people.
• 1966 - Henry "Dickie" Marrow is murdered in a violent racially-motivated crime in Oxford, N.C.
• 1977 - 130+ hostages held in Washington, D.C, by Hanafi Muslims were set free after ambassadors from three Islamic nations joined negotiations.
• 1978 - Nine Palestinian Al Fatah guerillas hijack a bus in Israel, killing 34 civilians and wounding 70 before being killed by security forces. The Israelis retaliate by invading southern Lebanon three days later, under codename Operation Litani.
• 1983 - Bob Hawke becomes 23rd Prime Minister of Australia.
• 1985 - Mikhail Gorbachev becomes Soviet leader.
• 1988 - Iran-Iraq War: Cease Fire declared.
• 1990 - Lithuania declares itself independent from the Soviet Union.
• 1990 - Patricio Aylwin is sworn-in as the first democratically elected Chilean president since 1973.
• 1991 - A curfew is imposed on black townships in South Africa after fighting between rival political gangs kills 49.
• 1993 - Janet Reno is confirmed by the United States Senate and sworn-in the next day, becoming the first female Attorney General of the United States.
• 1996 - John Howard comes to power as the twenty-fifth Prime Minister of Australia.
• 1997 - An explosion at a nuclear waste reprocessing plant in Japan exposes 35 workers to low-level radioactive contamination in the worst nuclear accident in Japan's history.
• 1999 - Infosys becomes the first Indian company listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange.
• 2003 - The International Criminal Court is founded in The Hague.
• 2004 - Simultaneous explosions on rush hour trains in Madrid kill 191 people.
• 2005 - Judge Rowland Barnes, court reporter Julie Brandau and deputy Hoyt Teasley are all murdered in the Fulton County Courthouse in Atlanta, Georgia; the main suspect being Brian Nichols who surrendered to police on the 12th.
  

  Births

• 1544 - Torquato Tasso, Italian poet (d. 1595)
• 1785 - John McLean, U.S. Supreme Court justice (d. 1861)
• 1876 - Carl Ruggles, composer (d. 1971)
• 1885 - Malcolm Campbell, Grand Prix race car driver (d. 1948)
• 1890 - Vannevar Bush, engineer and politician (d. 1974)
• 1892 - Raoul Walsh, film director (d. 1980)
• 1898 - Dorothy Gish, actress (d. 1968)
• 1899 - King Frederick IX of Denmark (d. 1972)
• 1903 - Lawrence Welk, Champagne musicmaker (d. 1992)
• 1903 - Ronald Syme, classicist and historian (d. 1989)
• 1907 - Helmut von Moltke, jurist (d. 1945)
• 1910 - Robert Havemann, chemist (d. 1982)
• 1915 - Hans Peter Keller, writer (d. 1988)
• 1915 - Karl Krolow, lyricist and essayist (d. 1999)
• 1916 - Harold Wilson, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1995)
• 1919 - Mercer Ellington, musician, composer (d. 1996)
• 1921 - Astor Piazzolla, tango composer (d. 1992)
• 1926 - Reverend Ralph Abernathy, civil rights leader (d. 1990)
• 1926 - Thomas Starzl, physician
• 1927 - Joachim Fuchsberger, actor
• 1927 - Robert Mosbacher, former United States Secretary of Commerce
• 1928 - Albert Salmi, American actor (d. 1990)
• 1931 - Rupert Murdoch, publisher, entrepreneur
• 1934 - Sam Donaldson, reporter
• 1936 - Antonin Scalia, associate justice of the United States Supreme Court
• 1939 - Flaco Jiménez, American musician
• 1948 - Dominique Sanda, actress
• 1950 - Bobby McFerrin, singer
• 1950 - Jerry Zucker, producer, director, writer
• 1952 - Douglas Adams, science fiction/comedy novelist (d. 2001)
• 1955 - Nina Hagen, singer
• 1958 - Anissa Jones, American actress (d. 1976)
• 1959 - Nina Hartley, pornographic film actress
• 1964 - Shane Richie, British actor
• 1965 - Lawrence Llewelyn-Bowen, British television presenter
• 1968 - Lisa Loeb, singer
• 1971 - Johnny Knoxville, ("Jackass"), television personality
• 1974 - Bobby Abreu, Major League Baseball All-Star
• 1979 - Benji Madden, ("Good Charlotte"), band
• 1979 - Joel Madden, ("Good Charlotte"), band
• 1981 - David Anders, actor
• 1981 - Lee Evans, American football player
• 1982 - Thora Birch, actress
• 1989 - Anton Yelchin, Russian-American actor
  

  Deaths

• 222 - Roman emperor Heliogabalus (b. c. 203) and his mother Julia Soaemias (b. 180), killed by the Praetorian Guard
• 1759 - John Forbes, British general in the French and Indian War (b. 1710)
• 1847 - Johnny Appleseed, American pioneer agronomist, (b. 1774)
• 1854 - Willard Richards, American religious leader (b. 1804)
• 1908 - Revd Benjamin Waugh, social reformer, founder of NSPCC, (b. 1839)
• 1920 - Julio Garavito Armero, Colombian astronomer (b. 1865)
• 1931 - F.W. Murnau, director, (b. 1888)
• 1955 - Alexander Fleming, biologist (b. 1881)
• 1957 - Admiral Richard E. Byrd, explorer, (b. 1888)
• 1967 - Geraldine Farrar, American soprano (b. 1882)
• 1969 - John Wyndham, author, (b. 1903)
• 1970 - Erle Stanley Gardner, novelist, (b. 1889)
• 1971 - Philo T. Farnsworth, television pioneer, (b. 1906)
• 1971 - Whitney Young, American civil rights leader
• 1972 - Frederick Brown, author (b. 1906)
• 1983 - Donald McLean, spy
• 1996 - Vince Edwards, American actor
• 2002 - James Tobin, economist, (b. 1918)
• 2005 - Bill Cameron, journalist, (b. 1943)
  

  Holidays and observances

• 1990 - Purim
• Lithuania - Reestablishment of Lithuania's Independence
• Lesotho - Moshoeshoe Day
• Red Nose Day in the United Kingdom (2005)
• Zambia - Youth Day
  

  External links

• BBC: On This Day

March 10 - March 12 - February 11 - April 11 -- listing of all days