December 11 is the 345th day of the year (346th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 20 days remaining until the end of the year. This date is slightly more likely to fall on a Tuesday, Friday or Sunday (58 in 400 years each) than on Wednesday or Thursday (57), and slightly less likely to occur on a Monday or Saturday (56).
There are 14 days till Christmas.
Holidays
- Christian Feast Day:
- Human Rights and Peace Day (Kiribati)
- Indiana Day (United States)
- International Mountain Day (International)
- National Tango Day (Buenos Aires)
- One of the four Agonalia, this day in honor of Sol Indiges; also the Septimontium festival (Roman Empire)
- Pampanga Day (Pampanga Province, the Philippines)
- Republic Day, the day when Upper Volta became an autonomous republic in the French Community in 1958. (Burkina Faso)
History
In 220, Cao Pi forces Emperor Xian of Han to abdicate the Han Dynasty throne. The Cao Wei empire is established. The Three Kingdoms period begins.
In 361, Julian the Apostate enters Constantinople as sole Emperor of the Roman Empire.
In 630, Muhammad leads an army of 10,000 to conquer Mecca.
In 861, Assassination of the Abbasid caliph al-Mutawakkil by the Turkish guard, who raise al-Muntasir to the throne. Start of the “Anarchy at Samarra“.
In 969, Byzantine Emperor Nikephoros II Phokas is assassinated by his wife Theophano and her lover, the later Emperor John I Tzimiskes.
In 1282, Llywelyn the Last, the last native Prince of Wales, is killed at Cilmeri, near Builth Wells, south Wales.
In 1602, A surprise attack by forces under the command of Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy and his brother-in-law, Philip III of Spain, is repelled by the citizens of Geneva.
In 1688, Glorious Revolution: James II of England abdicated the throne by throwing the Great Seal of the Realm into the River Thames.
In 1725, George Mason, American politician (d. 1792) was born.
In 1789, The University of North Carolina is chartered by the North Carolina General Assembly.
In 1792, French Revolution: King Louis XVI of France is put on trial for treason by the National Convention.
In 1815, The U.S. Senate creates a select committee on finance and a uniform national currency, predecessor of the United States Senate Committee on Finance.
In 1816, Indiana becomes the 19th U.S. state.
In 1868, Brazilians defeat Paraguayans at the Battle of Avay during the Paraguayan War.
In 1872, America’s first black governor took office as Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback became acting governor of Louisiana.
In 1880, Oliver Winchester, American businessman, founded the Winchester Repeating Arms Company (b. 1810) dies. He was an American businessman and politician.
Winchester was known for manufacturing and marketing the Winchester repeating rifle, which was a much re-designed descendant of the Volcanic rifle of some years earlier. Winchester started as a clothing manufacturer in New York City and New Haven, Connecticut. During this period he discovered that a division of Smith & Wesson firearms was failing financially with one of their newly patented arms. Having an eye for opportunity, Winchester assembled venture capital together with other stockholders and acquired the S&W division, better known as the Volcanic Repeating Arms Company, in 1850. By 1857, Winchester had positioned himself as the principal stockholder in the company and relocated to New Haven, changing the name to New Haven Arms Company.
Initially, the company was plagued by sluggish returns, which was in part attributed to the design and poor performance of the Volcanic cartridge: a hollow conical ball filled with black powder and sealed by a cork primer. Although the Volcanic’s repeater design far outpaced the rival technology, the poor performance and reliability of the .25 and .32 caliber cartridges used in the pistol and rifle models respectively, was little match for the competitors’ larger calibers.
Fortunately for Winchester, he inherited a brilliant engineer, Benjamin Tyler Henry, who would prove an invaluable asset. Henry sought to improve on the Volcanic repeating rifle, by enlarging the frame and magazine to accommodate seventeen of his newly redesigned, all-brass case, .44 caliber rimfire cartridges. This new cartridge put the new company on the map, and Henry’s ingenuity was rewarded with a patent in his name October 16, 1860, for what was to become the famous Henry rifle.
In 1882, Max Born was born, died Jan 5, 1970 (was 87) Physicist, Jewish, German, quantum mechanics, Nobel Peace Prize 1954; Olivia Newton-John’s granddad.
Born this day in 1892, Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, died Mar 27, 1982 (was 89), She was an American juvenile mystery novelist and publisher who authored some 200 books over her literary career. She wrote many books in the Nancy Drew series (under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene) and a few in the Hardy Boys series (under the pseudonym Franklin W. Dixon). She also oversaw other ghostwriters who wrote for these and many other series as a part of the Stratemeyer Syndicate.
In 1892, Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, died Mar 27, 1982 (was 89), Novelist, Bobbsey Twins, Tom Swift Jr., Nancy Drew. Adams outlined a few in the Hardy Boys series, which were published under the pseudonym Franklin W. Dixon.
In 1905, A workers’ uprising occurs in Kiev, Ukraine (then part of the Russian Empire) and establishes the Shuliavka Republic.
In 1907, The New Zealand Parliament Buildings are almost completely destroyed by fire.
In 1917, British General Edmund Allenby enters Jerusalem on foot and declares martial law.
In 1920, Irish War of Independence: In retaliation for an IRA ambush, British forces burn and loot numerous buildings in Cork city. Many civilians also reported being beaten, shot at, robbed and verbally abused by British forces.
In 1925, Roman Catholic papal encyclical Quas Primas introduces the Feast of Christ the King.
In 1927, Guangzhou Uprising: Communist militia and worker Red Guards launch an uprising in the Chinese city of Guangzhou, taking over most of the city and announcing the formation of a Guangzhou Soviet.
In 1930, The Bank of the United States in New York failed and closed all its 60 branches. The bank had at least 400,000 depositors.
In 1931, The British Parliament enacts the Statute of Westminster 1931, establishing legislative equality between the United Kingdom and the self-governing dominions of the British Commonwealth: Australia, Canada, Newfoundland, New Zealand, South Africa, and the Irish Free State.
In 1934, Bill Wilson, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, takes his last drink and enters treatment for the last time.
In 1936, Abdication Crisis: Edward VIII‘s abdication as King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions beyond the Seas, and Emperor of India, becomes effective.
In 1937, Second Italo–Ethiopian War: Italy leaves the League of Nations.
In 1941, World War II: Germany and Italy declare war on the United States, following the Americans’ declaration of war on the Empire of Japan in the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor. The United States, in turn, declares war on them.
In 1941, World War II: Poland declares war on Empire of Japan.
In 1946, The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) is established.
In 1948, The United Nations passes General Assembly Resolution 194, which established and defined the role of the United Nations Conciliation Commission as an organization to facilitate peace in the British Mandate for Palestine.
In 1958, French Upper Volta and French Dahomey gain self-government from France, becoming the Republic of Upper Volta and the Republic of Dahomey (now Benin) respectively, joining the French Community.
In 1960, French forces crack down in a violent clash with protesters in French Algeria during a visit by French president Charles de Gaulle.
In 1962, Arthur Lucas, convicted of murder, is the last person to be executed in Canada.
In 1964, Che Guevara speaks at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, New York.
In 1964, Sam Cooke, American singer-songwriter (The Highway Q.C.’s and The Soul Stirrers) (b. 1931) died.
In 1968, The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus featuring The Rolling Stones, Jethro Tull, The Who, Taj Mahal, Marianne Faithfull, The Dirty Mac, Yoko Ono, Sir Robert Fossett’s Circus and the Nurses is filmed at the Intertel (V.T.R. Services) Studio, Wycombe Road, Wembley
In 1972, Apollo 17 becomes the sixth and last Apollo mission to land on the Moon.
In 1978, The Lufthansa heist is committed by a group led by Lucchese family associate Jimmy Burke. It was the largest cash robbery ever committed on American soil, at that time.
In 1980, The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, also known as CERCLA or Superfund, is enacted by the U.S. Congress.
In 1981, El Mozote massacre: Armed forces in El Salvador kill an estimated 900 civilians in an anti-guerrilla campaign during the Salvadoran Civil War.
In 1982, Domestic partnership is vetoed by San Francisco Mayor Diane Feinstein. YES the very same.
In 1993, Forty-eight people are killed when a block of the Highland Towers collapses near Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
In 1994, First Chechen War: Russian President Boris Yeltsin orders Russian troops into Chechnya.
In 1994, A bomb explodes on Philippine Airlines Flight 434, en route from Manila, Philippines to Tokyo, Japan, killing one. The captain is able to safely land the plane.
In 1997, The Kyoto Protocol opens for signature.
In 1998, Thai Airways Flight 261 crashes near Surat Thani Airport, killing 101. The pilot flying the Thai Airways Airbus A310-300 is thought to have suffered spatial disorientation.
In 2001, The People’s Republic of China joins the World Trade Organization.
In 2005, The Buncefield Oil Depot catches fire in Hemel Hempstead, England, United Kingdom.
In 2005, Cronulla riots: Thousands of White Australians demonstrate against ethnic violence resulting in a riot against anyone thought to be Lebanese (and many who are not) in Cronulla, New South Wales, Australia. These are followed up by retaliatory ethnic attacks on Cronulla.
In 2006, The International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust is opened in Tehran, Iran by then-president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; nations such as Israel and the United States express concern.
In 2006, Felipe Calderón, the President of Mexico, launches a military-led offensive to put down the drug cartel violence in the state of Michoacán. This effort is often regarded as the first event in the Mexican Drug War.
In 2007, Two car bombs explode at the Constitutional court building in Algiers, Algeria and the United Nations office. An estimated 45 people are killed in the bombings.
In 2008, Bernard Madoff is arrested and charged with securities fraud in a $50 billion Ponzi scheme.
In 2012, At least 125 people are killed and up to 200 injured in bombings in the Alawite village of Aqrab, Syria.
In 2014, The city of Detroit, Michigan emerges from the largest municipal bankruptcy in United States history.
In 2017, A bomb detonated in the New York City Subway, in the Times Square–42nd Street/Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York City. It is known as the 2017 New York City attempted bombing.
