On January 11th...

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1494 Florentine painter and mosaicist Domenico Ghirlandaio died.

1596 The first recorded lottery in England was drawn in St. Paul's Cathedral.

1693 Mt. Etna in Sicily erupted, killing about 60,000 persons.

1757 American statesman Alexander Hamilton was born.

1759 The first American life insurance company was incorporated, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

1779 Ching-Thang Khomba was crowned King of Manipur.

1785 The Continental Congress convened in New York, New York.

1794 U. S. Marshal Robert Forsythe was killed while trying to serve court papers in Augusta, Georgia.

1805 Michigan Territory was organized.

1807 Ezra Cornell, founder of Western Union and Cornell University, was born.

1815 John A. Macdonald, Prime Minister of Canada, was born.

1824 Bayard Taylor, journalist, traveler, poet and lecturer, was born.

1838 The first public demonstration of a telegraph message using dots and dashes was given at the Speedwell Iron Works in Morristown, New Jersey.

1839 An earthquake destroyed half of Port Royal, Martinique, and killed about 700 people.

1842 Philosopher and religious scholar William James was born.

1843 Poet Francis Scott Key died.

1861 Alabama seceded from the Union.

1863 Union forces captured Arkansas Post, Arkansas.

1864 Charing Cross Station opened in London, England.

1865 Clarina Irene Howard Nichols, woman's suffrage advocate, was born.

1866 The steamship London sank in a storm off Land's End, England, killing 220 persons.

1874 Gail Borden, Jr., inventor of condensed milk, died.

1885 Suffragette Alice Paul was born.

1892 The Hawaiian Historical Society was founded.

1894 The Donghak Peasant Rebellion began in Mujiang, Korea.

1897 Writer Bernard DeVoto was born.

1911 Actor George Benson was born.

1919 Romania annexed Transylvania.

1923 Race car designer Carroll Shelby was born.
1923 King Constantine I of Greece died.

1924 King George II of Greece was deposed and a republic was proclaimed.

1926 Television executive Grant Tinker was born.

1928 Author Thomas Hardy died.

1940 Sergei Prokofiev's ballet "Romeo and Juliet" premiered in Leningrad, Russia.

1942 Japan conquered Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

1946 Enver Hoxha declared the People's Republic of Albania, with himself as dictator.
1946 Singer Naomi Judd was born.

1947 Georgia Governor Ellis Arnall resigned in favor of Lieutenant Governor M. E. Thompson.
1947 The entire Cabinet of Paraguay resigned.

1958 Guitarist Vicki Peterson.

1960 Chad declared its independence from France.

1961 A ship was wrecked in a storm off Alhucemas, Morocco, killing 42 persons.
1961 The Throgs Neck Bridge, linking the Bronx and Queens boroughs of New York City, New York, was opened to traffic.

1962 A U.S. Air Force B-52H bomber broke a world record by flying half-way around the world non-stop and without refueling.

1963 The Whisky-A-Go-Go* opened in Los Angeles.
1963 Olympic swimmer Tracy Caulkins was born.

1966 "Daktari" premiered on CBS-TV.

1967 Lani Bird, the second in the second series of Intelsat satellites, was launched from Cape Kennedy.

1970 The Kansas City Chiefs beat the Minnesota Vikings 23-7 in Super Bowl IV.

1971 Singer Mary J. Blige was born.

1972 East Pakistan became the independent state of Bangladesh.

1973 The American League adopted the designated hitter rule.

1974 The last new episode of "Love, American Style" aired on ABC-TV.

1976 A military coup in Ecuador overthrew President Guillermo Lara.

1979 Actor Jack Soo died.

1983 Nikolai Podgorny, former President of the U. S. S. R., died.

1984 The Denver Nuggets and the San Antonio Spurs played the highest-scoring game in NBA history, 163 to 155.

1988 World War II aviator Pappy Boyington died.

1991 Soviet troops stormed buildings in Vilnius to block Lithuania's bid for independence.

1995 A DC-9 crashed near Maria La Baya, Colombia, killing 51 of the 52 persons aboard; the survivor was a 9-year-old girl.

1999 Actor Robert Douglas died.

2008 Edmund Hillary, the first to summit Mount Everest, died.

2013 A landslide buried a village in Yunnan Province, China, killing 46 persons and leaving 12 missing.
2013 A bus veered off a mountain road in Doti, Nepal, killing 29 persons and injuring 12.

2015 Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic was elected as the first female President of Croatia.

2016 Baseball player Monte Irvin died.
2016 Actor David Margulies died.

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This page was last updated on January 11, 2019.