Historical Events on 11 May

Historical Events on 11 May

1310 - Fifty-four members of the Knights Templar are burned at the stake in France for being heretics.
1502 - Christopher Columbus leaves for his fourth and final voyage to the West Indies.
1647 - Peter Stuyvesant arrives in New Amsterdam.
1745 - War of Austrian Succession: Battle of Fontenoy - At Fontenoy, French forces defeat an Anglo-Dutch-Hanoverian army.
1792 - Captain Robert Gray becomes the first documented white person to sail into the Columbia River.
1812 - Prime Minister Spencer Perceval is assassinated by John Bellingham in the lobby of the House of Commons, London.
1813 - In Australia, William Lawson, Gregory Blaxland and William Wentworth, lead an expedition westwards from Sydney. Their route opens up inland Australia for continued expansion throughout the 19th century.
1820 - Launch of HMS Beagle the ship that took young Charles Darwin on his scientific voyage.
1841 - Lt. Charles Wilkes lands at Fort Nisqually in Puget Sound.
1857 - Indian Mutiny: Indian rebels seize Delhi from the British.
1858 - Minnesota is admitted as the 32nd U.S. state.
1862 - American Civil War: The ironclad CSS Virginia is scuttled in the James River northwest of Norfolk, Virginia.
1864 - American Civil War: Battle of Yellow Tavern - Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart is mortally wounded at Yellow Tavern, Virginia.
1867 - Luxembourg gains its independence.
1891 - The Otsu Scandal takes place.
1894 - Pullman Strike: Four thousand Pullman Palace Car Company workers go on a wildcat strike in Illinois.
1907 - A derailment outside Lompoc, California kills 32 Shriners when their chartered train jumps off the tracks at a switch near Surf Depot.
1910 - An act of the U.S. Congress establishes Glacier National Park in Montana.
1911 - The United States becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty.
1918 - The Mountainous Republic of the Northern Caucasus is officially established.
1924 - Mercedes-Benz is formed by Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz merging the two companies.
1927 - The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is founded.
1934 - Dust Bowl: A strong two-day dust storm removes massive amounts of Great Plains topsoil in one of the worst dust storms of the Dust Bowl in North America.
1942 - William Faulkner's collections of short stories, Go Down, Moses, is published.
1943 - World War II: American troops invade Attu Island in the Aleutian Islands in an attempt to expel occupying Japanese forces.
1944 - World War II: The Allies start a major offensive against the Axis Powers on the Gustav Line.
1946 - UMNO is created.
1949 - Siam officially changes its name to Thailand, a name in use since 1939.
1949 - Israel joins the United Nations.
1953 - The 1953 Waco tornado outbreak: An F5 tornado hits downtown Waco, Texas, killing 114.
1960 - In Buenos Aires, Argentina, four Israeli Mossad agents capture fugitive Nazi Adolf Eichmann, living under the assumed name Ricardo Klement.
1960 - The first contraceptive pill is made available on the market.
1967 - Andreas Papandreou, Greek economist and socialist politician, is imprisoned in Athens by the Greek military junta.
1968 - The Toronto Transit Commission opens the largest expansion of its Bloor-Danforth Line, going to Scarborough in the east, and Etobicoke in the west.
1969 - Vietnam War: Operation Apache Snow - Near the Laos border, American and South Vietnamese forces fight North Vietnamese troops for Ap Bia Mountain (aka Hill 937 or "Hamburger Hill").
1970 - The Lubbock Tornado: An F5 tornado hits downtown Lubbock, Texas, killing 26.
1970 - Henry Marrow is murdered in a violent racially-motivated crime in Oxford, North Carolina.
1973 - Citing government misconduct, Daniel Ellsberg has his charges for his involvement in releasing the Pentagon Papers to The New York Times dismissed.
1984 - A transit of Earth from Mars takes place.
1985 - Fifty-six spectators die when a flash fire strikes a football ground during a match in Bradford, England.
1987 - In Baltimore, Maryland, The first heart-lung transplant takes place. The surgery is performed by Dr. Bruce Reitz, of Stanford University School of Medicine.
1987 - Klaus Barbie goes on trial in Lyon for war crimes committed during World War II.
1995 - In New York City, more than 170 countries decide to extend the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty indefinitely and without conditions.
1996 - After taking-off from Miami, Florida, a fire started by improperly handled oxygen canisters in the cargo hold of Atlanta-bound ValuJet Flight 592 causes the Douglas DC-9 to crash in the Florida Everglades killing all 110 on board.
1997 - IBM Deep Blue, a chess-playing supercomputer, defeats Garry Kasparov in the last game of the rematch, becoming the first computer to beat a world-champion chess player in a classic match format.
1998 - India conducts three underground nuclear tests in Pokhran, including a thermonuclear device.
2000 - Last performance of the musical Cats in London's West End.
2002 - Her Royal Highness Princess Margriet of the Netherlands unveils the Man With Two Hats monument in Ottawa and Apeldoorn (May 2), 2000, symbolically linking both the Netherlands and Canada for their assistance throughout the Second World War.
2007 - Pope Benedict XVI canonizes the first Brazilian-born saint, Frei Galvão.
330 - Byzantium is renamed Nova Roma during a dedication ceremony, but is more popularly referred to as Constantinople.