Historical Events on Wednesday, 11th June

11/06/2013

Greece's public broadcaster ERT is shut down by then-prime minister Antonis Samaras. It would be opened exactly two years later by then-prime minister Alexis Tsipras.

The Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation, commonly shortened to ERT, is the state-owned public radio and television broadcaster of Greece.

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11/06/2012

75 people die in a landslide triggered by two earthquakes in Afghanistan; an entire village is buried.

On 11 June 2012, two moderate earthquakes struck northern Afghanistan, causing a large landslide. The landslide buried the town of Sayi Hazara, trapping 71 people. After four days of digging, only five bodies were recovered and the search was called off. Overall, 75 people were killed and 13 others were injured.

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11/06/2010

The first African FIFA World Cup kicks off in South Africa.

The FIFA World Cup, often called the World Cup, is an international association football competition among the senior men's national teams of the members of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The tournament has been held every four years since the inaugural tournament in 1930, with the exception of 1942 and 1946 due to the Second World War. The reigning champions are Argentina, who won their third title at the 2022 World Cup by defeating France.

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11/06/2008

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper makes a historic official apology to Canada's First Nations in regard to abuses at a Canadian Indian residential school.

The prime minister of Canada is the head of government of Canada. Under the Westminster system, the prime minister governs with the confidence of a majority of the elected House of Commons; as such, the prime minister typically sits as a member of Parliament (MP) and leads the largest party or a coalition of parties. As first minister, the prime minister selects ministers to form the Cabinet.

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The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is launched into orbit.

The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, formerly called the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST), is a space observatory being used to perform gamma-ray astronomy observations from low Earth orbit. Its main instrument is the Large Area Telescope (LAT), with which astronomers mostly intend to perform an all-sky survey studying astrophysical and cosmological phenomena such as active galactic nuclei, pulsars, other high-energy sources and dark matter. Another instrument aboard Fermi, the Gamma-ray Burst Monitor, is being used to study gamma-ray bursts and solar flares.

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11/06/2007

Mudslides in Chittagong, Bangladesh, kill 130 people.

The 2007 Chittagong mudslides occurred in the port city of Chittagong in south-eastern Bangladesh. On 11 June 2007, heavy monsoon rainfall caused mudslides that engulfed slums around the hilly areas of the city. Experts had previously warned the increasing likelihood of landslides due to the Bangladesh government's failure in curbing the illegal hill cutting taking place in Chittagong.

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11/06/2004

Cassini–Huygens makes its closest flyby of the Saturn moon Phoebe.

Cassini–Huygens, commonly called Cassini, was a joint space-research mission by NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Italian Space Agency (ASI) to send a space probe to study the planet Saturn and its system, including its rings and natural satellites. The Flagship-class robotic spacecraft comprised both NASA's Cassini space probe and ESA's Huygens lander, which landed on Saturn's largest moon, Titan. Cassini was the fourth space probe to visit Saturn and the first to enter its orbit, where it stayed from 2004 to 2017. The two craft took their names from the astronomers Giovanni Cassini and Christiaan Huygens.

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11/06/2002

Antonio Meucci is acknowledged as the first inventor of the telephone by the United States Congress.

Antonio Santi Giuseppe Meucci was an Italian inventor and an associate of Giuseppe Garibaldi, a major political figure in the history of Italy. Meucci is best known for developing a voice-communication apparatus that several sources credit as the first telephone.

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11/06/2001

Timothy McVeigh is executed for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing.

Timothy James McVeigh was an American domestic terrorist who masterminded and perpetrated the Oklahoma City bombing on April 19, 1995. The bombing itself killed 167 or 168 people, injured 684 people, and destroyed one-third of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. A rescue worker was killed after the bombing when debris struck her head, bringing the total to 168–169 killed. It remains the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in U.S. history.

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11/06/1998

Compaq Computer pays US$9 billion for Digital Equipment Corporation in the largest high-tech acquisition.

Compaq Computer Corporation was an American information technology company founded in 1982 that developed, sold, and supported computers and related products and services. Compaq produced some of the first IBM PC compatible computers, being the second company after Columbia Data Products to legally reverse engineer the BIOS of the IBM Personal Computer. It rose to become the largest supplier of PC systems during the 1990s. The company was initially based in Harris County, Texas.

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11/06/1987

Diane Abbott, Paul Boateng and Bernie Grant are elected as the first black MPs in Great Britain.

Diane Julie Abbott is a British politician who has served as a Member of Parliament (MP) for Hackney North and Stoke Newington since 1987. She was the first black woman elected to the UK Parliament, and in 2024 became its longest-serving female MP, earning the title Mother of the House. A former Shadow Home Secretary and Privy Counsellor, Abbott has been a prominent figure on the Labour left and a vocal campaigner on issues of race and inequality. She was suspended from the Labour Party in 2023 over comments about racism, later apologised, and had the whip restored ahead of the 2024 general election. In July 2025, she was suspended again after reiterating those remarks in a BBC interview, and currently sits as an independent MP.

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11/06/1981

A magnitude 6.9 earthquake at Golbaf, Iran, kills at least 2,000.

Golbaf is a city in, and the capital of, Golbaf District of Kerman County, Kerman province, Iran.

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11/06/1978

Altaf Hussain founds the student political movement All Pakistan Muhajir Students Organisation (APMSO) in Karachi University.

Altaf Hussain is a British Pakistani politician who is known as the founder of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement. He holds United Kingdom citizenship and has been living in exile in the UK since the start of Operation Clean-up. Since 2015, he has been a fugitive from the Anti Terrorism Court of Pakistan on the charges of 'murder, targeted killing, treason, inciting violence and hate speech'. He went on trial in the UK in January 2022 for 'promoting terrorism and unrest through hate speech in Pakistan', and was acquitted the next month. He had fled the country in 1992 after a crackdown against his party was launched.

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11/06/1971

The U.S. Government forcibly removes the last holdouts to the Native American Occupation of Alcatraz, ending 19 months of control.

The Indigenous peoples of the Americas are the peoples who are native to the Americas or the Western Hemisphere. Their ancestors are among the pre-Columbian population of South or North America, including Central America and the Caribbean. Indigenous peoples live throughout the Americas. While often minorities in their countries, Indigenous peoples are the majority in Greenland and close to a majority in Bolivia and Guatemala.

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11/06/1970

After being appointed on May 15, Anna Mae Hays and Elizabeth P. Hoisington officially receive their ranks as U.S. Army general officers, becoming the first women to do so.

May 15 is the 135th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar; 230 days remain until the end of the year.

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11/06/1968

Lloyd J. Old identified the first cell surface antigens that could differentiate among different cell types.

Lloyd John Old was an American medical researcher, and one of the founders of the field of cancer immunology. When Old began his career in 1958, tumor immunology was in its infancy. Today, cancer immunotherapies are a significant advance in cancer therapy.

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11/06/1964

World War II veteran Walter Seifert attacks an elementary school in Cologne, Germany, killing at least eight children and two teachers and seriously injuring several more with a home-made flamethrower and a lance.

The Cologne school massacre was a mass murder that occurred at the Catholic elementary school located in the suburb of Volkhoven in Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, West Germany, on 11 June 1964. The perpetrator, Walter Seifert, also known as "Der Feuerteufel von Volkhoven", attacked the people at the school with a home-made flamethrower and a spear, killing eight pupils and two teachers, and wounding twenty-two others. When police arrived at the scene, Seifert fled from the school compound and poisoned himself. He was taken to a hospital, where he died the same evening.

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11/06/1963

American Civil Rights Movement: Governor of Alabama George Wallace defiantly stands at the door of Foster Auditorium at the University of Alabama in an attempt to block two black students, Vivian Malone and James Hood, from attending that school. Later in the day, accompanied by federalized National Guard troops, they are able to register.

The civil rights movement was a social movement in the United States from 1954 to 1968 which aimed to abolish legalized racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement in the country, which most commonly affected African Americans. The movement had origins in the Reconstruction era in the late 19th century, and modern roots in the 1940s and in Mohandas Gandhi's nonviolent movement in India. After years of nonviolent protests and civil disobedience campaigns, the civil rights movement achieved many of its legislative goals in the 1960s, during which it secured new protections in federal law for the civil rights of all Americans, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Civil Rights Act of 1968.

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Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức burns himself with gasoline in a busy Saigon intersection to protest the lack of religious freedom in South Vietnam.

Thích Quảng Đức was a Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhist monk who died by self-immolation at a busy Saigon road intersection on 11 June 1963. Quảng Đức was protesting the persecution of Buddhists by the South Vietnamese government of Ngô Đình Diệm, a staunch Roman Catholic. Photographs of his self-immolation circulated around the world, drawing attention to the policies of the Diệm government. John F. Kennedy said of one photograph, "No news picture in history has generated so much emotion around the world as that one". Malcolm Browne won the World Press Photo of the Year for his photograph of the monk's death.

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John F. Kennedy addresses Americans from the Oval Office proposing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which would revolutionize American society by guaranteeing equal access to public facilities, ending segregation in education, and guaranteeing federal protection for voting rights.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy, also known as JFK, was the 35th president of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. He was the youngest person elected president, at 43 years, and the first Catholic president. Kennedy served at the height of the Cold War, and the majority of his foreign policy concerned relations with the Soviet Union and Cuba. A member of the Democratic Party, Kennedy represented Massachusetts in both houses of the United States Congress before his presidency.

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11/06/1962

Frank Morris, John Anglin and Clarence Anglin allegedly become the only prisoners to escape from the prison on Alcatraz Island.

On the night of June 11, 1962, inmates Frank Morris and brothers John and Clarence Anglin escaped from Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, the maximum-security prison on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay, California, United States. Having spent six months preparing their breakout, the three men tucked papier-mâché model heads resembling their own likenesses into their beds, broke out of the main prison building via ventilation ducts and an unguarded utility corridor, and departed the island aboard an improvised inflatable raft to an uncertain fate. A fourth inmate, Allen West, failed to escape with Morris and the Anglins and was left behind.

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11/06/1956

Start of Gal Oya riots, the first reported ethnic riots that target minority Sri Lankan Tamils in the Eastern Province. The total number of deaths is reportedly 150.

The 1956 anti-Tamil pogrom, also known as the Gal Oya riots, was the first organised pogrom against Sri Lankan Tamils in the Dominion of Ceylon. It began with anti-Tamil rioting in Colombo, followed by anti-Sinhalese rioting in the Batticaloa District. The worst of the violence took place in the Gal Oya valley after the Batticaloa attacks, where local majority Sinhalese colonists and employees of the Gal Oya Development Board commandeered government vehicles, dynamite and weapons and massacred minority Tamils. It is estimated that over 150 people, the vast majority Tamils, had died during the violence. The police and army were eventually able to bring the situation under control.

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11/06/1955

Eighty-three spectators are killed and at least one hundred are injured after an Austin-Healey and a Mercedes-Benz collide at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the deadliest ever accident in motorsports.

Austin-Healey was a British sports car maker established in 1952 through a joint venture between the Austin division of the British Motor Corporation (BMC) and the Donald Healey Motor Company (Healey), a renowned automotive engineering and design firm. Leonard Lord represented BMC and Donald Healey his firm.

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11/06/1944

USS Missouri, the last battleship built by the United States Navy and future site of the signing of the Japanese Instrument of Surrender, is commissioned.

USS Missouri (BB-63) is an Iowa-class battleship built for the United States Navy (USN) in the 1940s and is now a museum ship. Completed in 1944, she is the last battleship commissioned by the United States. The ship was assigned to the Pacific Theater during World War II, where she participated in the Battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa and shelled the Japanese home islands. Her quarterdeck was the site where the Japanese Instrument of Surrender was signed, officially ending World War II.

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11/06/1942

World War II: The United States agrees to send Lend-Lease aid to the Soviet Union.

Lend-Lease, formally the Lend-Lease Act and introduced as An Act to Promote the Defense of the United States, was a policy under which the United States supplied the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, France, the Republic of China, and other Allied nations of the Second World War with food, oil, and materiel between 1941 and 1945. The aid was given free of charge on the basis that such help was essential for the defense of the United States.

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Free French Forces retreat from Bir Hakeim after having successfully delayed the Axis advance.

Free France was a resistance government claiming to be the legitimate government of France following the dissolution of the Third Republic during World War II. Led by General Charles de Gaulle, Free France was established as a government-in-exile in London in June 1940 after the Fall of France to Nazi Germany. It joined the Allied nations in fighting Axis forces with the Free French Forces, supported the resistance in Nazi-occupied France, known as the French Forces of the Interior, and gained strategic footholds in several French colonies in Africa.

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11/06/1940

World War II: The Siege of Malta begins with a series of Italian air raids.

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 as a result of massacres, starvation, disease, and genocides including the Holocaust. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.

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11/06/1938

Second Sino-Japanese War: The Battle of Wuhan starts.

The Second Sino-Japanese War, known in China as the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, was fought between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan between 1937 and 1945, following a period of war localized to Manchuria that started in 1931. It is often regarded as the beginning of World War II in Asia, as the wars became heavily intertwined after Japan's entry into World War II. It was the largest Asian war in the 20th century.

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11/06/1937

Great Purge: The Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin executes eight army leaders.

The Great Purge or Great Terror, also known as the Year of '37 and the Yezhovshchina, was a political purge in the Soviet Union from 1936 to 1938. After the assassination of Sergei Kirov by Leonid Nikolaev in 1934, Joseph Stalin launched a series of show trials known as the Moscow trials to remove suspected dissenters from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The term "great purge" was popularized by historian Robert Conquest in his 1968 book, The Great Terror, whose title alluded to the French Revolution's Reign of Terror.

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11/06/1936

Inventor Edwin Armstrong demonstrates FM broadcasting to an audience of engineers at the FCC in Washington, DC.

Edwin Howard Armstrong was an American radio-frequency engineer and inventor who developed FM radio and the superheterodyne receiver system.

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The London International Surrealist Exhibition opens.

The International Surrealist Exhibition was held from 11 June to 4 July 1936 at the New Burlington Galleries, near Savile Row in London's Mayfair, England.

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11/06/1920

During the U.S. Republican National Convention in Chicago, U.S. Republican Party leaders gathered in a room at the Blackstone Hotel to come to a consensus on their candidate for the U.S. presidential election, leading the Associated Press to coin the political phrase "smoke-filled room".

The 1920 Republican National Convention nominated Ohio Senator Warren G. Harding for president and Massachusetts Governor Calvin Coolidge for vice president. The convention was held in Chicago, Illinois, at the Chicago Coliseum from June 8 to June 12, 1920, with 940 delegates. Under convention rules, a majority plus one, or at least 471 of the 940 delegates, was necessary for a nomination.

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11/06/1919

Sir Barton wins the Belmont Stakes, becoming the first horse to win the U.S. Triple Crown.

Sir Barton was a champion American Thoroughbred racehorse who is the first winner of the American Triple Crown.

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11/06/1917

King Alexander assumes the throne of Greece after his father, Constantine I, is deemed to have abdicated under pressure from allied armies occupying Athens.

Alexander was King of Greece from 11 June 1917 until his death on 25 October 1920.

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11/06/1903

A group of Serbian officers storms the royal palace and assassinates King Alexander I of Serbia and his wife, Queen Draga.

The May Coup was a coup d'état in the Kingdom of Serbia which resulted in the assassination of King Alexander I and his consort, Queen Draga, inside the Stari Dvor in Belgrade on the night of 10–11 June [O.S. 28–29 May] 1903. This act resulted in the extinction of the Obrenović dynasty that had ruled Serbia since the middle of the 19th century. A group of army officers led by Captain Dragutin Dimitrijević (Apis) organized the assassination. After the May Coup, the throne passed to King Peter I of the Karađorđević dynasty.

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11/06/1901

The boundaries of the Colony of New Zealand are extended by the UK to include the Cook Islands.

The Colony of New Zealand was a colony of the United Kingdom from 1841 to 1907. British authority was vested in a governor. The colony had three successive capitals: Okiato in 1841; Auckland from 1841 to 1865; and Wellington from 1865. Following the New Zealand Constitution Act 1852, the colony became a Crown colony with its first elected parliament in 1853. Responsible self-government was established in 1856 with the governor required to act on the advice of his ministers. In 1907, the colony became the Dominion of New Zealand.

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11/06/1898

The Hundred Days' Reform, a planned movement to reform social, political, and educational institutions in China, is started by the Guangxu Emperor, but is suspended by Empress Dowager Cixi after 104 days. (The failed reform led to the abolition of the Imperial examination in 1905.)

The Hundred Days' Reform or Wuxu Reform was a short-lived national, cultural, political and educational reform movement in the Qing Empire, from June 11 to September 21, 1898. It sought to modernize China's institutions during a time of increasing foreign intervention in China following the country's defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895). Although brief, the movement introduced new political concepts of nationhood and sovereignty, inspiring many of the subsequent "New Policies" reforms launched after 1901.

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11/06/1895

Paris–Bordeaux–Paris, sometimes called the first automobile race in history or the "first motor race", takes place.

The Paris–Bordeaux–Paris Trail race of June 1895 is sometimes called the "first motor race", although it did not fit modern competition where the fastest is the winner. It was a win for Émile Levassor, who came first after completing the 1,178km race in 48 hours, almost six hours before second place. However, the official winner was Paul Koechlin, who finished third in his Peugeot, exactly 11 hours slower than Levassor, but the official race regulations had been established for four-seater cars, while Levassor and runner-up Louis Rigoulot were driving two-seater cars.

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11/06/1892

The Limelight Department, one of the world's first film studios, is officially established in Melbourne, Australia.

The Limelight Department was an Australian film studio. One of the world's first film studios, with its beginnings in 1891, it was operated by the Salvation Army in Melbourne. The studio produced evangelistic material for the Salvation Army, including lantern slides as early as 1891, as well as for private and government contracts. In its 19 years of operation the Limelight Department produced about 400 films of various lengths, making it one of largest film producers of its time.

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11/06/1865

The Naval Battle of the Riachuelo is fought on the rivulet Riachuelo (Argentina), between the Paraguayan Navy on one side and the Brazilian Navy on the other. The Brazilian victory was crucial for the later success of the Triple Alliance (Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina) in the Paraguayan War.

The Battle of Riachuelo was a large and decisive naval battle of the Paraguayan War between Paraguay and the Empire of Brazil. By late 1864, Paraguay had scored a series of victories in the war, but on 11 June 1865, its naval defeat by the Brazilians on the Paraná River began to turn the tide in favor of the allies.

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11/06/1837

The Broad Street Riot occurs in Boston, fueled by ethnic tensions between Yankees and Irish.

The Broad Street Riot was a massive brawl that occurred in Boston, Massachusetts, on June 11, 1837, between Irish Americans and Yankee firefighters. An estimated 800 people were involved in the actual fighting, with at least 10,000 spectators egging them on. Nearby homes were sacked and vandalized, and the occupants beaten. Many on both sides were seriously injured, but no immediate deaths resulted from the violence. After raging for hours, the riot was quelled when Mayor Samuel Eliot called in the state cavalry, the National Lancers, to quell the riot.

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11/06/1825

The first cornerstone is laid for Fort Hamilton in New York City.

A cornerstone is the first stone set in the construction of a masonry foundation. All other stones will be set in reference to this stone, thus determining the position of the entire structure.

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11/06/1805

A fire consumes large portions of Detroit in the Michigan Territory.

The Great Fire of 1805 occurred on June 11, 1805, in Detroit, which was then part of the Michigan Territory of the United States. The fire destroyed the remaining vestiges of the old Fort Porchartrain and a vast number of buildings in its vicinity. Fort Lernoult and a warehouse on the river were the only structures in Detroit that survived the conflagration.

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11/06/1788

Russian explorer Gerasim Izmailov reaches Alaska.

Gerasim Grigoryevich Izmaylov was a Russian navigator involved in the Russian colonization of the Americas and in the establishment of the colonies of Russian America in Alaska. He was responsible for the first detailed maps of the Aleutian Islands.

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11/06/1776

The Continental Congress appoints Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston to the Committee of Five to draft a declaration of independence.

The Continental Congress was a series of legislative bodies, with some executive function, who acted as the Provisional Government for the Thirteen Colonies of Great Britain in North America, and the newly declared United States before, during, and after the American Revolutionary War. The Continental Congress refers to both the First and Second Congresses of 1774–1781 and at the time, also described the Congress of the Confederation of 1781–1789. The Confederation Congress operated as the first federal government until being replaced following ratification of the U.S. Constitution. Until 1785, the Congress met predominantly at what is today Independence Hall in Philadelphia, though it was relocated temporarily on several occasions during the Revolutionary War and the fall of Philadelphia.

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11/06/1775

The Coronation of Louis XVI in Reims, the last coronation before the French Revolution.

The coronation of Louis XVI as King of France and Navarre took place in Reims Cathedral on 11 June 1775, which fell on Trinity Sunday. Louis XVI had come to the throne the previous year in succession to his grandfather Louis XV who had reigned for 59 years. It was the first coronation since 1722 and only the second since 1654 due to the longevity of the two previous monarchs, Louis XIV and Louis XV.

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The American Revolutionary War's first naval engagement, the Battle of Machias, results in the capture of a small British naval vessel.

The American Revolutionary War, also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which American Patriot forces organized as the Continental Army and commanded by George Washington defeated the British Army. The conflict was fought in North America, the Caribbean, and the Atlantic Ocean. The war's outcome seemed uncertain for most of the war, but Washington and the Continental Army's decisive victory in the Siege of Yorktown in 1781 led King George III and the Kingdom of Great Britain to negotiate an end to the war. In 1783, in the Treaty of Paris, the British monarchy acknowledged the independence of the Thirteen Colonies, leading to the establishment of the United States as an independent and sovereign nation.

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11/06/1770

British explorer Captain James Cook runs aground on the Great Barrier Reef.

Captain James Cook was a British Royal Navy officer, explorer, and cartographer who led three voyages of exploration to the Pacific and Southern Oceans between 1768 and 1779. He completed the first recorded circumnavigation of the main islands of New Zealand, and led the first recorded visit by Europeans to the east coast of Australia and the Hawaiian Islands.

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11/06/1748

Denmark adopts the characteristic Nordic Cross flag later taken up by all other Scandinavian countries.

Denmark is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark, also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the autonomous territories of the Faroe Islands and Greenland in the north Atlantic Ocean. Metropolitan Denmark, also called "continental Denmark" or "Denmark proper", consists of the northern Jutland peninsula and an archipelago of 406 islands. It is the southernmost of the Scandinavian countries, lying southwest of Sweden, south of Norway, and north of Germany. Germany is also the only country it shares a border with at its Metropolitan Area; but it does share a tiny border with Canada on Hans Island in the Arctic, although this is only due to Greenland being a territory of Denmark. Denmark proper is situated between the North Sea to the west and the Baltic Sea to the east.

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11/06/1724

Johann Sebastian Bach leads his cantata O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort (O eternity, you word of thunder), BWV 20, on the first Sunday after Trinity, beginning his second cycle, the chorale cantata cycle.

Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his prolific output across a variety of instruments and forms, including the orchestral Brandenburg Concertos; solo instrumental works such as the Cello Suites and Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin; keyboard works such as the Goldberg Variations and The Well-Tempered Clavier; organ works such as the Schübler Chorales and the Toccata and Fugue in D minor; and choral works such as the St. Matthew Passion and the Mass in B minor. He is known for his mastery of counterpoint, as heard in The Musical Offering and The Art of Fugue. Felix Mendelssohn precipitated the Bach Revival with a performance of the St. Matthew Passion in 1829. Ever since, Bach has been acclaimed as one of the greatest composers of classical music.

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11/06/1702

Anglo-Dutch forces skirmish with French forces before the walls of Nijmegen and prevent its fall.

The assault on Nijmegen occurred during the War of the Spanish Succession, on 10 and 11 June 1702 involving French troops under the Duke of Boufflers against the small garrison and some citizens of the city of Nijmegen and an Anglo-Dutch army under the Earl of Athlone.

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11/06/1594

Philip II recognizes the rights and privileges of the local nobles and chieftains in the Philippines, which paved way to the stabilization of the rule of the Principalía (an elite ruling class of native nobility in Spanish Philippines).

Philip II, sometimes known in Spain as Philip the Prudent, was King of Spain from 1556, King of Portugal from 1580, and King of Naples and Sicily from 1554 until his death in 1598. He was also jure uxoris King of England and Ireland from his marriage to Queen Mary I in 1554 until her death in 1558. Further, he was Duke of Milan from 1540. From 1555, he was Lord of the Seventeen Provinces of the Netherlands.

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11/06/1559

Don Tristan de Luna y Arellano sails for Florida with party of 1,500, intending to settle on gulf coast (Vera Cruz, Mexico).

Tristán de Luna y Arellano was a Spanish explorer and conquistador of the 16th century.

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11/06/1509

Henry VIII of England marries Catherine of Aragon.

Henry VIII was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. After the pope refused to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, Henry passed legislation that severed England and Ireland from the Roman Catholic Church and established the monarch as Supreme Head of the Church of England, initiating the English Reformation. He subsequently married five more times; two marriages were annulled and two wives were executed.

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11/06/1488

The Battle of Sauchieburn is fought between rebel Lords and James III of Scotland, resulting in the death of the king.

The Battle of Sauchieburn was fought on 11 June 1488, at the side of Sauchie Burn, a stream about two miles (3 km) south of Stirling, Scotland. The battle was fought between the followers of King James III of Scotland and a large group of rebellious Scottish nobles including the future Alexander Home, 2nd Lord Home, who were nominally led by the king's 15-year-old son, James, Duke of Rothesay. James III was killed in the battle, and his son succeeded him as James IV.

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11/06/1429

Hundred Years' War: Start of the Battle of Jargeau.

The Hundred Years' War was a conflict between the kingdoms of England and France and a civil war in France during the late Middle Ages. It emerged from feudal disputes over the Duchy of Aquitaine and was triggered by a claim to the French throne made by Edward III of England. The war grew into a broader military, economic, and political struggle involving factions from across Western Europe, fuelled by emerging nationalism on both sides. The periodisation of the war typically charts it as taking place over 116 years. However, it was an intermittent conflict which was frequently interrupted by external factors, such as the Black Death, and several years of truces.

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11/06/1345

The megas doux Alexios Apokaukos, chief minister of the Byzantine Empire, is lynched by political prisoners.

The megas doux was one of the highest positions in the hierarchy of the later Byzantine Empire, denoting the commander-in-chief of the Byzantine navy. It is sometimes also given in English by the half-Latinizations megaduke or megadux. The Greek word δούξ is the Hellenized form of the Latin term dux, meaning leader or commander.

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11/06/1157

Albert I of Brandenburg, also called The Bear (Ger: Albrecht der Bär), becomes the founder of the Margraviate of Brandenburg, Germany and the first margrave.

Albert the Bear was the first margrave of Brandenburg from 1157 to his death and was briefly duke of Saxony between 1138 and 1142.

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11/06/1118

Roger of Salerno, Prince of Antioch, captures Azaz from the Seljuk Turks.

Roger of Salerno was regent of the Principality of Antioch from 1112 to 1119. He was the son of Richard of the Principate and the nephew of Tancred, Prince of Galilee, both participants on the First Crusade. He became regent of Antioch when Tancred died in 1112; the actual prince, Bohemond II, was still a child. Like Tancred, Roger was almost constantly at war with the nearby Muslim states such as Aleppo. In 1114 there was an earthquake that destroyed many of the fortifications of the principality, and Roger took great care to rebuild them, especially those near the frontier.

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11/06/1011

Lombard Revolt: Greek citizens of Bari rise up against the Lombard rebels led by Melus and deliver the city to Basil Mesardonites, Byzantine governor (catepan) of the Catepanate of Italy.

The Norman conquest of southern Italy lasted from 999 to 1194, involving many battles and independent conquerors. In 1130, the territories in southern Italy united as the Kingdom of Sicily, which included the island of Sicily, the southern third of the Italian Peninsula, the archipelago of Malta, and parts of North Africa.

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11/06/0980

Vladimir the Great consolidates the Kievan realm from Ukraine to the Baltic Sea. He is proclaimed ruler (knyaz) of all Kievan Rus'.

Vladimir I Sviatoslavich or Volodymyr I Sviatoslavych, given the epithet "the Great", was Prince of Novgorod from 970 and Grand Prince of Kiev from 978 until his death in 1015. The Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church both canonised him as Saint Vladimir.

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11/06/0786

A Hasanid Alid uprising in Mecca is crushed by the Abbasids at the Battle of Fakhkh.

The Ḥasanids are the descendants of Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī, brother of Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī and grandson of Muhammad. They are a branch of the Alids, and one of the two most important branches of the ashrāf.

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11/06/0631

Emperor Taizong of Tang sends envoys to the Xueyantuo bearing gold and silk in order to seek the release of Chinese prisoners captured during the transition from Sui to Tang.

Emperor Taizong of Tang, previously Prince of Qin, personal name Li Shimin, was the second emperor of the Tang dynasty of China, ruling from 626 to 649. He is traditionally regarded as a co-founder of the dynasty for his role in encouraging his father Li Yuan to rebel against the Sui dynasty at Jinyang in 617. Taizong subsequently played a pivotal role in defeating several of the dynasty's most dangerous opponents and solidifying its rule over China proper.

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11/06/0173

Marcomannic Wars: The Roman army in Moravia is encircled by the Quadi, who have broken the peace treaty (171). In a violent thunderstorm emperor Marcus Aurelius defeats and subdues them in the so-called "miracle of the rain".

The Marcomannic Wars were a series of wars lasting from about AD 166 until 180. These wars pitted the Roman Empire against principally the Germanic Marcomanni and Quadi and the Sarmatian Iazyges; there were related conflicts with several other Germanic, Sarmatian, and Gothic peoples along both sides of the whole length of the Roman Empire's northeastern European border, the river Danube.

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