On December 11th...

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384 Pope St. Damasus I died.

1475 Giovanni de Medici (Pope Leo X) was born.

1602 A surprise attack by forces under the command of the Duke of Savoy and his brother-in-law, Philip III of Spain, was repelled by the citizens of Geneva.

1618 Russia and Poland signed the Treaty of Dailino.

1620 The Mayflower landed at Plymouth Rock.

1725 American politician George Mason was born.

1792 France's King Louis XVI went on trial for treason.

1803 Composer Hector Berlioz was born.

1816 Indiana became the 19th state.

1843 Bacteriologist Robert Koch was born.

1844 Nitrous oxide was used in dentistry for the first time, in Hartford, Connecticut.

1863 Astronomer Annie Jump Cannon was born.

1866 The first yacht race across the Atlantic began.

1872 Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback became the first black Governor to take office, in Louisiana.

1874 Businessman James L. Kraft was born.

1882 Boston's Bijou Theatre, the first American playhouse lit exclusively by electricity, gave its first performance, Gilbert & Sullivan's "Iolanthe."
1882 New York City Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia was born.

1888 The French Panama Canal Company failed.

1901 Guglielmo Marconi sent the first transatlantic radio signal, from Cornwall to Newfoundland.

1909 Colored moving pictures were demonstrated at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

1913 The "Mona Lisa," stolen from the Louvre Museum in 1911, was recovered.

1914 The Stockton Street Tunnel, in San Francisco, was completed.

1918 Author-activist Alexander Solzhenitsyn was born.

1919 Enterprise, Alabama, dedicated a monument to the boll weevil.

1928 Buenos Aires police thwarted an attempt on U.S. President-elect Herbert Hoover's life.
1848 Inventor Lewis Howard Latimer died.

1931 The British Parliament passed the Statute of Westminster, making the Dominion of Canada independent.
1931 Actress Rita Moreno was born.
1931 Religious leader Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh was born.

1934 The National League voted to permit night baseball.

1935 Actor Ron Carey was born.

1936 King Edward VIII of Great Britain abdicated.

1937 Italy withdrew from the League of Nations.

1939 Singer David Gates was born.
1939 Businessman Charles Walgreen died.

1940 Actress Donna Mills was born.

1941 Germany and Italy declared war on the United States, and the United States declared war on Germany and Italy.
1941 The Dutch government in London declared war on Italy.
1941 Japanese troops attacked Wake Island.
1941 Japanese troops occupied Guam.

1943 U.S. Senator John Kerry was born.

1944 Actress Lynda Day George was born.
1944 Singer Brenda Lee was born.

1946 The United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) was established.

1947 Actress Teri Garr was born.

1950 Heiress Christina Onassis was born.

1951 Joe DiMaggio announced his retirement from baseball.

1954 Musician Jermaine Jackson was born.

1958 Upper Volta gained autonomy from France.
1958 Bassist Nikki Sixx was born.

1959 A new world speed record of 1,216.48 mph was set for a closed course by Brigadier General Joseph H. Moore at Edwards Air Force Base, California.

1961 The Marvelettes released "Please, Mr. Postman."

1964 A bazooka shell was fired at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, New York, while Cuban Industry Minister Ernesto Guevara was delivering a speech.
1964 Singer Sam Cooke died.

1966 Al Nelson set an NFL record for returning a missed field goal, 100 yards.

1968 U.S. Senator Bob Bartlett died.

1971 The Libertarian Party of America was formed.

1978 Seven masked men held up the Lufthansa cargo facility at Kennedy International Airport in New York, New York, and made away with $3-5 million worth of U.S. currency.

1980 "Magnum P. I." premiered on CBS-TV.

1984 A coup led by Colonel Maawiya Ould Sid'ahmed Taya overthrew the government of Mauritania.

1985 General Electric acquired RCA Corp and its subsidiary, NBC.

1990 An 83-vehicle accident blamed on fog killed 13 persons on I-75 in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

1991 Jazz musician Wilbur Dorsey Clayton died.

1994 Russia invaded Chechnya.

1997 Delegates from 150 nations meeting in Kyoto, Japan, signed an agreement to control "greenhouse gases."

1998 A Thai Airways Airbus crashed near Surat Thani (Thailand) Airport, killing 101 persons.

2007 Car bombs went off at the Constitutional Court building and the United Nations office in Algiers, Algeria, killing an estimated 45 persons.

2008 Teamsters president Ron Carey died.

2015 Playboy magazine published its last nude issue.

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This page was last updated on December 11, 2018.