November 11 - Events

Events

• 308 – At Carnuntum, Emperor emeritus Diocletian confers with Galerius, Augustus of the East, and Maximianus, the recently returned former Augustus of the West, in an attempt to restore order to the Roman Empire.
• 1215 – The Fourth Lateran Council meets, defining the doctrine of transubstantiation, the process by which bread and wine are, by that doctrine, said to transform into the body and blood of Christ.
• 1500 – Treaty of Granada – Louis XII of France and Ferdinand II of Aragon agree to divide the Kingdom of Naples between them.
• 1620 – The Mayflower Compact is signed in what is now Provincetown Harbor near Cape Cod.
• 1634 – Following pressure from Anglican bishop John Atherton, the Irish House of Commons passes An Act for the Punishment for the Vice of Buggery.
• 1673 – Second Battle of Khotyn in Ukraine: Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth forces under the command of Jan Sobieski defeat the Ottoman army. In this battle, rockets made by Kazimierz Siemienowicz are successfully used.
• 1675 – Gottfried Leibniz demonstrates integral calculus for the first time to find the area under the graph of y = ƒ(x).
• 1724 – Joseph Blake, alias Blueskin, a highwayman known for attacking "Thief-Taker General" (and thief) Jonathan Wild at the Old Bailey, is hanged in London.
• 1750 – Riots break out in Lhasa after the murder of the Tibetan regent.
• 1750 – The F.H.C. Society, also known as the Flat Hat Club, is formed at Raleigh Tavern, Williamsburg, Virginia. It is the first college fraternity.
• 1778 – Cherry Valley Massacre: Loyalists and Seneca Indian forces attack a fort and village in eastern New York during the American Revolutionary War, killing more than forty civilians and soldiers.
• 1805 – Napoleonic Wars: Battle of Dürenstein – 8000 French troops attempt to slow the retreat of a vastly superior Russian and Austrian force.
• 1813 – War of 1812: Battle of Crysler's Farm – British and Canadian forces defeat a larger American force, causing the Americans to abandon their Saint Lawrence campaign.
• 1831 – In Jerusalem, Virginia, Nat Turner is hanged after inciting a violent slave uprising.
• 1839 – The Virginia Military Institute is founded in Lexington, Virginia.
• 1864 – American Civil War: Sherman's March to the Sea – Union General William Tecumseh Sherman begins burning Atlanta, Georgia to the ground in preparation for his march south.
• 1865 – Treaty of Sinchula is signed by which Bhutan cedes the areas east of the Teesta River to the British East India Company.
• 1869 – The Victorian Aboriginal Protection Act is enacted in Australia, giving the government control of indigenous people's wages, their terms of employment, where they could live, and of their children, effectively leading to the Stolen Generations.
• 1880 – Australian bushranger Ned Kelly is hanged at Melbourne Gaol.
• 1887 – Anarchist Haymarket Martyrs August Spies, Albert Parsons, Adolph Fischer and George Engel are executed.
• 1887 – Construction of the Manchester Ship Canal begins at Eastham.
• 1889 – The State of Washington is admitted as the 42nd State of the United States.
• 1911 – Many cities in the Midwestern United States break their record highs and lows on the same day as a strong cold front rolls through.
• 1918 – World War I: Germany signs an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car in the forest of Compiègne, France. The fighting officially ends at 11:00 a.m., (the eleventh hour in the eleventh month on the eleventh day) and this is annually honoured with a two-minute silence. The war officially ends on the signing of the Treaty of Versailles on 28th June, 1919.
• 1918 – Józef Piłsudski assumes supreme military power in Poland - symbolic first day of Polish independence.
• 1918 – Emperor Charles I of Austria relinquishes power.
• 1919 – The Centralia Massacre in Centralia, Washington results the deaths of four members of the American Legion and the lynching of a local leader of the Industrial Workers of the World.
• 1919 – Lāčplēša day – Latvian forces defeat the Freikorps at Riga in the Latvian War of Independence.
• 1921 – The Tomb of the Unknowns is dedicated by US President Warren G. Harding at Arlington National Cemetery.
• 1926 – The United States Numbered Highway System, including U.S. Route 66, is established.
• 1930 – Patent number US1781541 is awarded to Albert Einstein and Leó Szilárd for their invention, the Einstein refrigerator.
• 1934 – The Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia is opened.
• 1940 – World War II: Battle of Taranto – The Royal Navy launches the first aircraft carrier strike in history, on the Italian fleet at Taranto.
• 1940 – The German cruiser Atlantis captures top secret British mail, and sends it to Japan.
• 1940 – Armistice Day Blizzard: An unexpected blizzard kills 144 in the U.S. Midwest.
• 1942 – World War II: Nazi Germany completes its occupation of France.
• 1944 – Dr. jur. Erich Göstl, a member of the Waffen SS, is presented with the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, to recognise extreme battlefield bravery, after losing his face and eyes during the Battle of Normandy.
• 1960 – A military coup against President Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam is crushed.
• 1961 – Thirteen Italian Air Force servicemen, deployed to the Congo as a part of the UN peacekeeping force are massacred by a mob in the course of the Kindu atrocity.
• 1962 – Kuwait's National Assembly ratifies the Constitution of Kuwait.
• 1965 – In Rhodesia (modern-day Zimbabwe), the white-minority government of Ian Smith unilaterally declares independence.
• 1966 – NASA launches Gemini 12.
• 1967 – Vietnam War: In a propaganda ceremony in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, three American prisoners of war are released by the Viet Cong and turned over to "new left" antiwar activist Tom Hayden.
• 1968 – Vietnam War: Operation Commando Hunt initiated. The goal is to interdict men and supplies on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, through Laos into South Vietnam.
• 1968 – A second republic is declared in the Maldives.
• 1972 – Vietnam War: Vietnamization – The United States Army turns over the massive Long Binh military base to South Vietnam.
• 1975 – Australian constitutional crisis of 1975: Australian Governor-General Sir John Kerr dismisses the government of Gough Whitlam, appoints Malcolm Fraser as caretaker Prime Minister and announces a general election to be held in early December.
• 1975 – Independence of Angola.
• 1981 – Antigua and Barbuda joins the United Nations.
• 1992 – The General Synod of the Church of England votes to allow women to become priests.
• 1993 – A sculpture honoring women who served in the Vietnam War is dedicated at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.
• 1999 – The House of Lords Act is given Royal Assent, restricting membership of the British House of Lords by virtue of a hereditary peerage.
• 2000 – Kaprun disaster: 155 skiers and snowboarders die when a cable car catches fire in an alpine tunnel in Kaprun, Austria.
• 2001 – Journalists Pierre Billaud, Johanne Sutton and Volker Handloik are killed in Afghanistan during an attack on the convoy they are traveling in.
• 2004 – New Zealand Tomb of the Unknown Warrior is dedicated at the National War Memorial, Wellington.
• 2004 – The Palestine Liberation Organization confirms the death of Yasser Arafat from unidentified causes. Mahmoud Abbas is elected chairman of the PLO minutes later.
• 2006 – Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II unveils the New Zealand War Memorial in London, United Kingdom, commemorating the loss of soldiers from the New Zealand Army and the British Army.
• 2008 – RMS Queen Elizabeth 2 (QE2) sets sail on her final voyage to Dubai.