March 11


March 11 is the 70th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (71st in Leap
years). There are 295 days remaining.

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 for the first time.
   * 1818 - Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is published
   * 1824 - The United States War Department creates the Bureau of Indian
     Affairs and Ely Parker of the Seneca tribe becomes its first director.
   * 1845 - The Flagstaff War: Chief Hone-Heke leads 700 Maoris in the
     burning of the white settlement Kororareka which was built in breach of
     the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi.
   * 1861 - American Civil War: The Constitution of the Confederate States
     of America is adopted.
   * 1888 - The "Great Blizzard of '88" begins along the eastern seaboard of
     the United States, shutting down commerce and killing more than 400.
   * 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, the Roxy Theatre is opened by Samuel Roxy
     Rothafel.
   * 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
   * 1978 - Palestinian terrorists on the Tel Aviv Haifa highway kill 34
     Israelis.
   * 1985 - Mikhail Gorbachev becomes Soviet leader.
   * 1990 - Lithuania becomes 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 killed 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.

Births

   * 1890 - Vannevar Bush, author of As We May Think (+ 1974)
   * 1892 - Raoul Walsh, film director (+ 1980)
   * 1898 - Dorothy Gish, actress (+ 1968)
   * 1899 - King Frederick IX of Denmark )+ 1972)
   * 1901 - King Leopold III of Belgium (+ 1983)
   * 1903 - Lawrence Welk, Champagne musicmaker (+ 1992)
   * 1907 - Helmut von Moltke, jurist (+ 1945)
   * 1910 - Robert Havemann, chemist (+ 1982)
   * 1915 - Hans Peter Keller, writer (+ 1989)
   * 1915 - Karl Krolow, lyricist and essayist (+ 1999)
   * 1916 - Harold Wilson, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (+ 1995)
   * 1919 - Mercer Ellington, musician, composer (+ 1996)
   * 1927 - Joachim Fuchsberger, actor
   * 1931 - Rupert Murdoch, publisher, entrepreneur
   * 1934 - Sam Donaldson, reporter
   * 1936 - Reverend Ralph Abernathy, civil rights leader (+ 1990)
   * 1936 - Antonin Scalia, associate justice of the United States Supreme
     Court
   * 1948 - Dominique Sanda, actress
   * 1950 - Bobby McFerrin, singer
   * 1950 - Jery Zucker, producer, director, writer
   * 1952 - Douglas Adams, science fiction/comedy novelist (+ 2001)
   * 1968 - Lisa Loeb, singer
   * 1971 - Johnny Knoxville, ("Jackass"), television personality

Deaths

   * 1847 - Johnny Appleseed, pioneer, agronomist
   * 1931 - F.W. Murnau, director
   * 1957 - Admiral Richard E. Byrd, explorer
   * 1970 - Erle Stanley Gardner, novelist
   * 1971 - Philo T. Farnsworth, television pioneer
   * 2002 - James Tobin, economist

Holidays and observances