Today In History – This Day In History Funny Events

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, better known by his posthumous nicknames Elagabalus and Heliogabalus, was Roman emperor from 218 to 222, while he was still a teenager. His short reign was notorious for religious controversy and alleged sexual debauchery. A close relative to the Severan dynasty, he came from a prominent Syrian Arab family in Emesa (Homs), Syria, where he served as the head priest of the sun god Elagabal from a young age. After the death of his cousin, the emperor Caracalla, Elagabalus was raised to the Principate at 14 years of age in an army revolt instigated by his grandmother Julia Maesa against Caracalla's short-lived successor, Macrinus. He only posthumously became known by the Latinised name of his god.

Emperor Elagabalus is assassinated, along with his mother, Julia Soaemias, by the Praetorian Guard during a revolt. Their mutilated bodies are dragged through the streets of Rome before being thrown into the Tiber.

The Battle of Castagnaro was fought on 11 March 1387 at Castagnaro between Verona and Padua. It is one of the most famous battles of the Italian condottieri age.

Battle of Castagnaro: English condottiero Sir John Hawkwood leads Padova to victory in a factional clash with Verona.

The Guarani are a group of culturally-related Indigenous peoples of South America. They are distinguished from the related Tupi by their use of the Guarani language. The traditional range of the Guarani people is in what is now Paraguay between the Paraná River and lower Paraguay River, the Misiones Province of Argentina, southern Brazil once as far east as Rio de Janeiro, and parts of Uruguay and Bolivia.

Guaraní forces living in the Jesuit reductions defeat bandeirantes loyal to the Portuguese Empire at the Battle of Mbororé in present-day Panambí, Argentina.

The Fronde was a series of civil wars in the Kingdom of France between 1648 and 1653, occurring in the midst of the Franco-Spanish War, which had begun in 1635. The government of the young King Louis XIV confronted the combined opposition of the princes, the nobility, the noble regional court assemblies, as well as much of the French population, and managed to subdue them all. The dispute started when the government of France issued seven fiscal edicts, six of which were to increase taxation. The parlements resisted, questioned the constitutionality of the king's actions, and sought to check his powers.

The Frondeurs and the French sign the Peace of Rueil.

The Daily Courant, initially published on [O.S. 11 March] 1702, was the first British daily newspaper. It was produced by Elizabeth Mallet at her premises next to the King's Arms tavern at Fleet Bridge in London. The newspaper consisted of a single page, with advertisements on the reverse side. Mallet advertised that she intended to publish only foreign news and would not add any comments of her own, supposing her readers to have "sense enough to make reflections for themselves".

The Daily Courant, England's first national daily newspaper is published for the first time.

Anne was Queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 8 March 1702, and Queen of Great Britain and Ireland following the ratification of the Acts of Union 1707 merging the kingdoms of England and Scotland, until her death in 1714.

Queen Anne withholds Royal Assent from the Scottish Militia Bill, the last time a British monarch vetoes legislation.

The Treaty of Mangalore was signed between Tipu Sultan and the British East India Company on 11 March 1784. It was signed in Mangaluru and brought an end to the Second Anglo-Mysore War.

The signing of the Treaty of Mangalore brings the Second Anglo-Mysore War to an end.

André Masséna, prince d'Essling, duc de Rivoli, was a French military commander of the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. He was one of the original eighteen Marshals of the Empire created by Napoleon I, who nicknamed him "the dear child of victory". He is considered to be one of the greatest generals of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.

During André Masséna's retreat from the Lines of Torres Vedras, a division led by French Marshal Michel Ney fights off a combined Anglo-Portuguese force to give Masséna time to escape.

The United States Department of War, also called the War Department, was the United States Cabinet department responsible for the operation and maintenance of the United States Army. It also had responsibility for naval affairs from 1794 until the establishment of the Department of the Navy in 1798, and for most non-naval air forces until the creation of the Department of the Air Force on September 18, 1947.

The United States Department of War creates the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

The Flagstaff War, also known as Heke's War, Hōne Heke's Rebellion and the Northern War, was fought between 11 March 1845 and 11 January 1846 in and around the Bay of Islands, New Zealand. The conflict is best remembered for the actions of Hōne Heke who challenged the authority of the British by cutting down the flagstaff on Flagstaff Hill at Kororāreka. The flagstaff had been a gift from Hōne Heke to James Busby, the first British Resident. The Northern War involved many major actions, including the Battle of Kororāreka on 11 March 1845, the Battle of Puketutu on 8 May 1845, the Battle of Ōhaeawai on 23 June 1845 and the siege of Ruapekapeka Pā from 27 December 1845 to 11 January 1846. The conflict is seen as one of the first of the New Zealand Wars.

Flagstaff War: Unhappy with translational differences regarding the Treaty of Waitangi, chiefs Hone Heke, Kawiti and Māori tribe members chop down the British flagpole for a fourth time and drive settlers out of Kororareka, New Zealand.

Sir Louis-Hippolyte Ménard dit La Fontaine, 1st Baronet, KCMG was a Canadian politician, jurist and statesman, who served as the first Premier of the United Province of Canada and the first head of a responsible government in Canada along side Robert Baldwin.

Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine and Robert Baldwin become the first Prime Ministers of the Province of Canada to be democratically elected under a system of responsible government.

Rigoletto is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the 1832 play Le roi s'amuse by Victor Hugo. Despite serious initial problems with the Austrian censors who had control over northern Italian theatres at the time, the opera had a triumphant premiere at La Fenice in Venice on 11 March 1851.

The first performance of Rigoletto by Giuseppe Verdi takes place in Venice.

The American Civil War was a civil war in the United States between the Union and the Confederacy, which was formed in 1861 by states that had seceded from the Union to preserve slavery in the United States, which they saw as threatened because of the election of Abraham Lincoln and the growing abolitionist movement in the North. The war lasted a little over four years and culminated in the dissolution of the Confederacy, the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, and the abolition of slavery, freeing four million African Americans.

American Civil War: The Constitution of the Confederate States of America is adopted.

The Great Sheffield Flood was a flood that devastated parts of Sheffield, England, on 11 March 1864, when the Dale Dyke Dam broke as its reservoir was being filled for the first time. At least 240 people died and more than 600 houses were damaged or destroyed by the flood. The immediate cause was a crack in the embankment, the cause of which was never determined. The dam's failure led to reforms in engineering practice, setting standards on specifics that needed to be met when constructing such large-scale structures. The dam was rebuilt in 1875.

The Great Sheffield Flood kills 238 people in Sheffield, England.

Seven Sisters is a village and community in the Dulais Valley, Wales, UK. It lies 10 miles (16 km) north-east of Neath. Seven Sisters falls within the Seven Sisters ward of Neath Port Talbot county borough.

Construction of the Seven Sisters Colliery, South Wales, begins; located on one of the richest coal sources in Britain.

Shō Tai was the final King of Ryukyu, initially as hereditary king of the Ryukyu Kingdom from 8 June 1848 until 10 October 1872 and finally as the Japanese appointed Domain King by Emperor Meiji, ultimately leading to his deposition and relocation to Tokyo by the Meiji Government on 11 March 1879.

Shō Tai formally abdicated his position of King of Ryūkyū, under orders from Tokyo, ending the Ryukyu Kingdom.

The Great Blizzard of 1888, also known as the Great Blizzard of '88 or the Great White Hurricane, was one of the most severe recorded blizzards and deadliest blizzard in American history. The storm paralyzed the East Coast from Chesapeake Bay to Maine, as well as the Atlantic provinces of Canada. Snow from 10 to 58 inches fell in parts of New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, and sustained winds of more than 45 miles per hour produced snowdrifts in excess of 50 feet (15 m). Railroads were shut down and people were confined to their homes for up to a week. Railway and telegraph lines were disabled, and this provided the impetus to move these pieces of infrastructure underground. Emergency services were also affected during this blizzard.

The Great Blizzard of 1888 begins along the eastern seaboard of the United States, shutting down commerce and killing more than 400.

World War I, or the First World War, also known as the Great War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Central Powers. Major areas of conflict included Europe and the Middle East, as well as parts of Africa and the Asia-Pacific. The war saw important developments in weaponry including tanks, aircraft, artillery, machine guns, and chemical weapons. One of the deadliest conflicts in history, it resulted in an estimated 30 million military casualties, and 8 million civilian deaths from war-related causes and genocide. The movement of large numbers of people was a major factor in the deadly Spanish flu pandemic.

World War I: Mesopotamian campaign: Baghdad falls to Anglo-Indian forces commanded by General Stanley Maude.

The 1918–1920 flu pandemic, also known as the Great Influenza epidemic or by the misleading name Spanish flu, was an exceptionally deadly global influenza pandemic caused by the H1N1 subtype of the influenza A virus. The earliest probable cases were documented in March 1918 in Haskell County, Kansas, United States, with further cases recorded in France, Germany and the United Kingdom in April. Two years later, nearly a third of the global population, or an estimated 500 million people, had been infected. Estimates of deaths range from 17 million to 50 million, and possibly as high as 100 million, making it one of the deadliest pandemics in history.

The first case of Spanish flu occurs, the start of a devastating worldwide pandemic.

Samuel Lionel "Roxy" Rothafel was an American theatrical impresario and entrepreneur. He is noted for developing the lavish presentation of silent films in the deluxe movie palace theaters of the 1910s and 1920s.

In New York City, Samuel Roxy Rothafel opens the Roxy Theatre.

Ready for Labour and Defence of the USSR, abbreviated as GTO was the All-Union physical culture training programme, introduced in the USSR on March 11, 1931 on the initiative of the Komsomol. It was a complement to the Unified Sports Classification System of the USSR. While the latter provided Soviet physical education system requirements only for athletes, GTO was a programme for all Soviet people of almost all ages. By the year 1976, 220 million people were awarded GTO badges, while in 1986 the tests were passed by 33.9 million people.

Ready for Labour and Defence of the USSR, abbreviated as GTO, is introduced in the Soviet Union.

World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated. Tanks and aircraft played major roles, the latter enabling the strategic bombing of cities and delivery of the only nuclear weapons used in war. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the death of 60 to 75 million people. Millions died in genocides, including the Holocaust, and by massacres, starvation, and disease. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.

World War II: United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Lend-Lease Act into law, allowing American-built war supplies to be shipped to the Allies on loan.

The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945, when it was dissolved following Japan's surrender in World War II. The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) was formed between 1952 and 1954 after the dissolution of the IJN.

World War II: The Imperial Japanese Navy attempts a large-scale kamikaze attack on the U.S. Pacific Fleet anchored at Ulithi atoll in Operation Tan No. 2.

The Empire of Vietnam was a short-lived puppet state of Imperial Japan between March 11 and August 25, 1945. It was a member of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. It was ruled by the Nguyễn dynasty and created when Emperor Bảo Đại declared independence for Vietnam from French protection. At the end of its existence, on 14 August 1945, the empire also successfully reclaimed Cochinchina as part of Vietnam.

World War II: The Empire of Vietnam, a short-lived Japanese puppet state, is established with Bảo Đại as its ruler.

Rudolf Franz Ferdinand Höss was a German SS officer and the commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp. After the defeat of Nazi Germany and the end of World War II, he lived under a false name until discovered by the British, who then turned him over to Polish authorities. Höss was convicted in Poland and executed for war crimes committed on the prisoners of the Auschwitz concentration camp and for his role in the Holocaust.

Rudolf Höss, the first commandant of Auschwitz concentration camp, is captured by British troops.

The Vietnam War was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam and their allies. North Vietnam was supported by the Soviet Union and China, while South Vietnam was supported by the United States and other anti-communist nations. The conflict was the second of the Indochina wars and a proxy war of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and US. The Vietnam War was one of the postcolonial wars of national liberation, a theater in the Cold War, and a civil war, with civil warfare a defining feature from the outset. Direct US military involvement escalated from 1965 until US forces were withdrawn in 1973. The fighting spilled into the Laotian and Cambodian Civil Wars, which ended with all three countries becoming communist in 1975.

Vietnam War: North Vietnamese and Viet Cong guerrilla forces establish control over Buôn Ma Thuột commune from the South Vietnamese army.

The 1977 Hanafi Siege was a terrorist attack, hostage-taking, and standoff in Washington, D.C., lasting from March 9 to March 11, 1977. Three buildings were seized by twelve Hanafi Movement gunmen, who took 149 hostages. During the initial attack and takeover of the buildings, the assailants killed a journalist and mortally wounded a police officer; three others, including a city councilor, were injured. After a 39-hour standoff, the gunmen surrendered and all remaining hostages were released.

The 1977 Hanafi Siege: More than 130 hostages held in Washington, D.C., by Hanafi Muslims are set free after ambassadors from three Islamic nations join negotiations.

The coastal road massacre occurred on 11 March 1978, when Palestinian militants hijacked a bus on the Coastal Highway of Israel and murdered its occupants; 38 Israeli civilians, including 13 children, were killed as a result of the attack while 76 more were wounded. The attack was planned by the influential Palestinian militant leader Khalil al-Wazir and carried out by Fatah, a Palestinian nationalist party co-founded by al-Wazir and Yasser Arafat in 1959. The initial plan of the militants was to seize a luxury hotel in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv and take tourists and foreign ambassadors hostage to exchange them for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli custody.

Coastal Road massacre: At least 37 are killed and more than 70 are wounded when Fatah hijack an Israeli bus, prompting Israel's Operation Litani.

Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the second-largest Muslim population as of 2023. Islamabad is the nation's capital, while Karachi is its largest city and financial centre. Pakistan is the 33rd-largest country by area. Bounded by the Arabian Sea on the south, the Gulf of Oman on the southwest, and the Sir Creek on the southeast, it shares land borders with India to the east; Afghanistan to the west; Iran to the southwest; and China to the northeast. It shares a maritime border with Oman in the Gulf of Oman, and is separated from Tajikistan in the northwest by Afghanistan's narrow Wakhan Corridor.

Pakistan successfully conducts a cold test of a nuclear weapon.

The Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania or Act of 11 March was an independence declaration by Lithuania adopted on 11 March 1990, signed by all members of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Lithuania led by Sąjūdis. The act emphasized restoration and legal continuity of the interwar-period Lithuania, which was occupied by the Soviet Union and annexed in June 1940. In March 1990, it was the first of the 15 Soviet republics to declare independence, with the rest following to continue for 21 months, concluding with Kazakhstan's independence in 1991. These events led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991.

Lithuania declares itself independent from the Soviet Union.

Patricio Aylwin Azócar was a Chilean politician, lawyer, author, professor and former senator who was the 30th president of Chile from 1990 to 1994. He was the first president to be elected after the end of Augusto Pinochet's military dictatorship following the 1988 Chilean presidential referendum, marking the Chilean transition to democracy in 1990. He was from the Christian Democratic Party.

Patricio Aylwin is sworn in as the first democratically elected President of Chile since 1970.

Janet Wood Reno was an American lawyer and public official who served as the 78th United States attorney general from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. A member of the Democratic Party, Reno was the second-longest serving attorney general, behind only William Wirt, and the first woman to serve in the position.

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.

Infosys Limited is an Indian multinational technology company that offers information technology, business consulting, and outsourcing services. Founded in 1981 by seven engineers, the company is headquartered in Bengaluru and considered one of the Big Six Indian IT companies.

Infosys becomes the first Indian company listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange.

The 2004 Madrid train bombings were a series of coordinated, nearly simultaneous bombings against the Cercanías commuter train system of Madrid, Spain, on the morning of 11 March 2004—three days before Spain's general elections. The explosions killed 193 people and injured around 2,500. The bombings constituted the deadliest terrorist attack carried out in the history of Spain and the deadliest in Europe since the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in Scotland. The attacks were carried out by radical Islamists who opposed Spanish indirect involvement in the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.

Madrid train bombings: Simultaneous explosions on rush hour trains in Madrid, Spain, kill 192 people.

Verónica Michelle Bachelet Jeria is a Chilean politician who served as the 33rd and 35th president of Chile from 2006 to 2010 and from 2014 to 2018. She is the first and to date only woman to hold the presidency. She was re-elected in December 2013 with over 62% of the vote, having previously received 54% in 2006, making her the first president of Chile to be re-elected since 1932. After her second term, she served as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2018 to 2022. Earlier in her career, she was appointed as the first executive director of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women.

Michelle Bachelet is inaugurated as first female president of Chile.

Georgia is a country in the Caucasus region on the coast of the Black Sea. It is located at the intersection of Eastern Europe and West Asia. It is bordered to the north and northeast by Russia; to the west by the Black Sea, to the south by Turkey and Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. Georgia covers an area of 69,700 square kilometres (26,900 sq mi). It has a population of 3.9 million, of which over a third live in Tbilisi, the capital and largest city. Georgians, who are native to the region and constitute the majority of the population, are ethno-linguistically distinct from all of their neighboring nations and primarily speak Georgian, a Kartvelian language that has no relation to any other language family in the world.

Georgia claims Russian helicopters attacked the Kodori Valley in Abkhazia, an accusation that Russia categorically denies later.

The Winnenden school shooting occurred on the morning of 11 March 2009 at the Albertville-Realschule, a real school in Winnenden, a town in the Rems-Murr district of Baden-Württemberg in southwestern Germany, followed by a shootout at a car dealership in nearby Wendlingen. The shooting spree resulted in 16 deaths, including the suicide of the perpetrator, 17-year-old Tim Kretschmer, who had graduated from the school a year earlier. Another nine people were injured during the incident.

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.

Miguel Juan Sebastián Piñera Echenique was a Chilean businessman and politician who served as 34th and 36th president of Chile from 2010 to 2014 and from 2018 to 2022. The son of a Christian Democratic politician and diplomat, he studied business administration at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and economics at Harvard University. At the time of his death, he had an estimated net worth of US$2.7 billion, according to Forbes, making him the third richest person in Chile.

Economist and businessman Sebastián Piñera is 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.

On 11 March 2011, at 14:46:24 JST, a Mw 9.0–9.1 undersea megathrust earthquake occurred in the Pacific Ocean, 72 km (45 mi) east of the Oshika Peninsula of the Tōhoku region. It lasted approximately six minutes and caused a tsunami. It is sometimes known in Japan as the "Great East Japan Earthquake Disaster" , among other names. The disaster is often referred to by its numerical date, 3.11.

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.

The Kandahar massacre, also called the Panjwai massacre, was a mass murder that occurred in the early hours of 11 March 2012, when United States Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales murdered 16 Afghan civilians and wounded six others in the Panjwayi District of Kandahar Province, in the former Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Nine of his victims were children, and 11 of the dead were from the same family. Some of the corpses were partially burned. Bales was taken into custody later that morning when he told authorities, "I did it".

A U.S. soldier kills 16 civilians in the Panjwayi District of Afghanistan near Kandahar.

Intense flooding and mudslides struck São Paulo (city) and São Paulo (state), Brazil, following heavy rain and killed at least 21. The downpour in São Paulo and the surrounding areas set new records for rainfall levels for the month of March and left cities covered in up to a meter of slowly draining mud and flood water. The rain occurred after months of drought.

At least 21 people are killed by flooding and mudslides in and around São Paulo, Brazil, following heavy rain.