History of 11 March
1900 – British Prime Minister Lord Salisbury rejected the peace overtures offered from the Boer leader Paul Kruger.
1901 – Britain rejected an amended treaty to the canal agreement with Nicaragua.
1901 – U.S. Steel was formed when industrialist J.P. Morgan purchased Carnegie Steep Corp. The event made Andrew Carnegie the world’s richest man.
1904 – After 30 years of drilling, the north tunnel under the Hudson River was holed through. The link was between Jersey City, NJ, and New York, NY.
1905 – The Parisian subway was officially inaugurated.
1907 – U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt induced California to revoke its anti-Japanese legislation.
1907 – In Bulgaria, Premier Nicolas Petkov was killed by an anarchist.
1909 – The first gold medal to a perfect-score bowler was awarded to A.C. Jellison by the American Bowling Congress.
1927 – Samuel Roxy Rothafel opened the famous Roxy Theatre in New York City.
1930 – Babe Ruth signed a two-year contract with the New York Yankees for the sum of $80,000.
1930 – U.S. President Howard Taft became the first U.S. president to be buried in the National Cemetery in Arlington, VA.
1935 – The German Air Force became an official department of the Reich.
1941 – U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the Lend-Lease Act, which authorized the act of providing war supplies to the Allies.
1946 – Communists and Nationalists began fighting as the Soviets pulled out of Mukden, Manchuria.
1946 – Pravda denounced Winston Churchill as anti-Soviet and a warmonger.
1947 – The DuMont network aired “Movies For Small Fry.” It was network television’s first successful children’s program.
1948 – Reginald Weir became the first black tennis player to participate in a U.S. Indoor Lawn Tennis Association tournament.
1959 – The Lorraine Hansberry drama A Raisin in the Sun opened at New York’s Ethel Barrymore Theater.
1964 – U.S. Senator Carl Hayden broke the record for continuous service in the U.S. Senate. He had worked for 37 years and seven days.
1965 – The American navy began inspecting Vietnamese junks in an effort to end arms smuggling to the South.
1969 – Levi-Strauss started selling bell-bottomed jeans.
1978 – Bobby Hull (Winnipeg Jets) joined Gordie Howe by getting his 1,000th career goal.
1985 – Mikhail Gorbachev was named the new chairman of the Soviet Communist Party.
1986 – Popsicle announced its plan to end the traditional twin-stick frozen treat for a one-stick model.
1988 – A cease-fire was declared in the war between Iran and Iraq.
1990 – Lithuania declared its independence from the Soviet Union. It was the first Soviet republic to break away from Communist control.
1990 – In Chile, Patricio Aylwin was sworn in as the first democratically elected president since 1973.
1992 – Former U.S. President Nixon said that the Bush administration was not giving enough economic aid to Russia.
1993 – Janet Reno was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate to become the first female attorney general.
1993 – North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty refusing to open sites for inspection.
1994 – In Chile, Eduardo Frei was sworn in as President. It was the first peaceful transfer of power in Chile since 1970.
1997 – An explosion at a nuclear waste reprocessing plant caused 35 workers to be exposed to low levels of radioactivity. The incident was the worst in Japan’s history.
1998 – The International Astronomical Union issued an alert that said that a mile-wide asteroid could come very close to, and possibly hit, Earth on Oct. 26, 2028. The next day NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced that there was no chance the asteroid would hit Earth.
2002 – Two columns of light were pointed skyward from ground zero in New York as a temporary memorial to the victims of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
2004 – Madrid train bombings: Simultaneous explosions on rush hour trains in Madrid, Spain, killing 192 people.
2006 – Michelle Bachelet is inaugurated as the first female president of Chile.
2007 – Georgia claims Russian helicopters attacked the Kodori Valley in Abkhazia, an accusation that Russia categorically denies later.
2009 – Winnenden school shooting: Sixteen are killed and 11 are injured before recent-graduate Tim Kretschmer shoots and kills himself, leading to tightened weapons restrictions in Germany.
2010 – Economist and businessman Sebastián Piñera are sworn in as President of Chile, while three earthquakes, the strongest measuring magnitude 6.9 and all centered next to Pichilemu, capital of Cardenal Caro province, hit central Chile during the ceremony.
2011 – An earthquake measuring 9.0 in magnitude strikes 130 km (81 mi) east of Sendai, Japan, triggering a tsunami killing thousands of people. This event also triggered the second largest nuclear accident in history, and one of only two events to be classified as a Level 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale.
2012 – A U.S. soldier kills 16 civilians in the Panjwayi district of Afghanistan near
Kandahar.
2016 – At least 21 people are killed by flooding and mudslides in and around Sao Paulo, Brazil, following heavy rain.
Celebrating Birthday Today
- 1981 – Heidi Cortez, American businesswoman, and author
- 1981 – Luke Johnson, English drummer, and songwriter
- 1981 – LeToya Luckett, American singer-songwriter and actress
- 1982 – Brian Anderson, American baseball player
- 1982 – Thora Birch, American actress
- 1982 – Hasan Raza, Pakistani cricketer
- 1983 – Lucy DeVito, American actress, daughter of Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman
- 1985 – Paul Bissonnette, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1985 – Daniel Vazquez Every, Equatoguinean footballer
- 1985 – Luis Hernandez, Mexican figure skater
- 1985 – Stelios Malezas, Greek footballer
- 1985 – Ajantha Mendis, Sri Lankan cricketer
- 1985 – Derek Schouman, American football player
- 1985 – Nikolai Topor-Stanley, Australian footballer
- 1985 – Hakuho Sho, Mongolian sumo wrestler, the 69th Yokozuna
- 1986 – Dario Cologna, Swiss skier
- 1986 – Mariko Shinoda, Japanese singer, and actress, former AKB48 member
- 1987 – Marc-Andre Gragnani, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1987 – Tanel Kangert, Estonian cyclist
- 1987 – Ngonidzashe Makusha, Zimbabwean sprinter and long jumper
- 1987 – Colin Munro, South African-New Zealand cricketer
- 1988 – Fabio Coentrao, Portuguese footballer
- 1988 – Cecil Lolo, South African footballer (d. 2015)
- 1988 – Katsuhiko Nakajima, Japanese wrestler
- 1989 – Anton Yelchin, Russian-born American actor (d. 2016)
- 1990 – Ayumi Morita, a Japanese tennis player
- 1991 – Kamohelo Mokotjo, South African footballer
- 1992 – Austin Swift, American actor, brother of American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift
- 1992 – KZ Tandingan, Filipina singer and rapper
- 1994 – Martin Jurtom, Estonian basketball player
- 1994 – Andrew Robertson, Scottish footballer