What Happened on December 11th in History
30 historical events on this date
ArabâIsraeli War: The United Nations passes General Assembly Resolution 194, creating a Conciliation Commission to mediate the conflict.
The 1948 ArabâIsraeli War, also known as the First ArabâIsraeli War, followed the civil war in Mandatory Palestine as the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war. The civil war became a war...
French Upper Volta and French Dahomey gain self-government from France, becoming the Republic of Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso) and the Republic of Dahomey (now Benin), respectively, and joining the French Community.
Upper Volta was a colony of French West Africa established in 1919 in the territory occupied by present-day Burkina Faso. It was formed from territories that had been part of the colonies of Upper...
French forces crack down in a violent clash with protesters in French Algeria during a visit by French president Charles de Gaulle.
French Algeria, also known as Colonial Algeria, was a colony and later an integral part of France. French rule lasted from the beginning of the French conquest in 1830 until the end of the Algerian...
Arthur Lucas, convicted of murder, is the last person to be executed in Canada.
Arthur Lucas, a black man originally from the U.S. state of Georgia, was one of the last two people to be executed in Canada, on December 11, 1962. Lucas had been convicted of the murder of...
Che Guevara speaks at the United Nations General Assembly in New York City.
Ernesto "Che" Guevara de la Serna was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, author, guerrilla leader, diplomat, politician, and military theorist. A major figure of the Cuban Revolution, his stylized...
Apollo 17 becomes the sixth and final Apollo mission to land on the Moon.
Apollo 17 was the eleventh and final crewed mission of NASA's Apollo program, the sixth and most recent time humans have set foot on the Moon. Commander Gene Cernan and Lunar Module Pilot Harrison...
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.
The Lufthansa heist was a robbery which took place at New York City's John F. Kennedy International Airport on December 11, 1978. An estimated US$5.875Â million was stolen, with $5Â million in cash...
The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (also known as Superfund) is enacted by the U.S. Congress.
Superfund is a United States federal environmental remediation program established by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA). The program is...
El Mozote massacre: Armed forces in El Salvador kill an estimated 900 civilians in an anti-guerrilla campaign during the Salvadoran Civil War.
The El Mozote massacre took place both in and around the village of El Mozote, in the MorazĂĄn Department, El Salvador, on December 11 and 12, 1981, when the Salvadoran Army killed more than 811...
A Soviet Air Force Il-76 aircraft crashes while participating in the Armenian earthquake relief, killing 78 people.
The Soviet Air Forces was one of two air forces belonging to the Soviet Union. The other was the Soviet Air Defence Forces. The Air Forces were formed from components of the Imperial Russian Air...
Demonstrations by students and workers across Albania begin, which eventually trigger the fall of communism in Albania.
Albania, officially the Republic of Albania, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is located in the Balkans, on the Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea, and shares land borders...
Several fatal collisions in the 1990 Interstate 75 fog disaster result in a total of 12 deaths and 42 being injured
The 1990 Interstate 75 fog disaster was a traffic collision that occurred on the morning of December 11, 1990, on a section of Interstate 75 (I-75) near Calhoun, Tennessee, during dense fog which...
A block of the Highland Towers condominium complex collapses following a landslide caused by heavy rain and water flowing from a construction site at Ampang district in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. 48 of its residents die, including one who died in hospital after being rescued alive, leaving only two survivors.
The Highland Towers collapse occurred on 11 December 1993 in Taman Hillview, Ulu Klang, Selangor, Malaysia. Tower Block 1 collapsed from a major landslide caused by heavy rains that burst diversion...
First Chechen War: Russian president Boris Yeltsin orders Russian troops into Chechnya.
The First Chechen War, also referred to as the First Russo-Chechen War, was a conflict between the separatist Chechen Republic of Ichkeria and the Russian Federation from 1994 to 1996. The conflict...
A bomb explodes on Philippine Airlines Flight 434, en route from Manila, Philippines, to Tokyo, Japan, killing one. The captain is able to land the plane safely.
Philippine Airlines Flight 434 was a scheduled flight on December 11, 1994, from Manila to Tokyo with a quick stopover in Cebu on a Boeing 747-283B that was seriously damaged by a bomb, killing one...
The Kyoto Protocol, an agreement committing countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, opens for signature.
The Kyoto Protocol (Japanese: 亏é˝č°ĺŽć¸, Hepburn: KyĹto Giteisho) was an international treaty which extended the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that commits state...
Thai Airways Flight 261 crashes near Surat Thani Airport, killing 101. The pilot flying the Airbus A310-200 is thought to have suffered spatial disorientation.
Thai Airways International Flight 261 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight from Bangkok's Don Mueang International Airport to Surat Thani International Airport in Surat Thani, Thailand. The...
SATA Air Açores Flight 530M crashes into Pico da Esperança on São Jorge Island in the Azores, killing 35.
SATA Air Açores Flight 530M was a Portuguese regional commuter flight operated by SATA Air Açores that connected Ponta Delgada-João Paulo II Airport and Flores Airport, with an intermediary stop at...
China joins the World Trade Organization (WTO).
The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an intergovernmental organization that regulates and facilitates international trade. Established on 1 January 1995, pursuant to the 1994 Marrakesh Agreement,...
The Buncefield Oil Depot catches fire in Hemel Hempstead, England.
The Buncefield fire was a major fire at an oil storage facility that started at 06:01 UTC on Sunday 11 December 2005 at the Hertfordshire Oil Storage Terminal, located near the M1 motorway, Hemel...
Cronulla riots: Thousands of White Australians demonstrate against ethnic violence resulting in a riot against anyone thought to be Lebanese in Cronulla, New South Wales; these are followed up by retaliatory ethnic attacks on Cronulla.
The Cronulla riots were a series of race riots in Sydney, Australia. They began in the beachside suburb of Cronulla on 11 December 2005, and over the following nights spread to additional suburbs....
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.
The International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust was a two-day meeting in Tehran, Iran, that began on 11 December 2006. It was hosted by the Iranian government of Mahmoud...
Felipe CalderĂłn, the president of Mexico, launches a military-led offensive to put down the drug cartel violence in the state of MichoacĂĄn. This effort is often regarded as the first event in the Mexican drug war.
Felipe de JesĂşs CalderĂłn Hinojosa is a Mexican politician and lawyer who served as the 63rd president of Mexico from 2006 to 2012 and Secretary of Energy during the presidency of Vicente Fox between...
Insurgency in the Maghreb: Two car bombs explode in Algiers, Algeria, one near the Supreme Constitutional Court and the other near the offices of the United Nations.
An Islamist insurgency is taking place in the Maghreb region of North Africa, followed on from the end of the Algerian Civil War in 2002. The Algerian militant group Salafist Group for Preaching and...
Bernie Madoff is arrested and charged with securities fraud in a $50Â billion Ponzi scheme.
Bernard Lawrence Madoff was an American financier, con artist, and stock broker who was the admitted mastermind of the largest-known Ponzi scheme in history, worth an estimated $65Â billion. He was...
Finnish game developer Rovio Entertainment releases the hit mobile game Angry Birds internationally on iOS.
Rovio Entertainment Oy is a Finnish video game developer based in Espoo. Founded in 2003 by Helsinki University of Technology students Niklas Hed, Jarno Väkeväinen and Kim Dikert, the company is...
At least 125 people are killed and up to 200 injured in bombings in the Alawite village of Aqrab, Syria.
The Aqrab massacre is a contested event which occurred on 10/11 December 2012, during the Syrian civil war, in the Alawite section of the mixed town of Aqrab, Hama Governorate, Syria. The Syrian...
New York City Subway bombing: A pipe bomb partially detonates in the New York City Subway, in the Times Squareâ42nd Street/Port Authority Bus Terminal. Four people are injured, including the perpetrator.
On December 11, 2017, a pipe bomb partially detonated in a corridor between the Times Squareâ42nd Street and 42nd StreetâPort Authority Bus Terminal subway stations adjoining the Port Authority Bus...
The results of the 2019 Bougainvillean independence referendum are announced. The results are overwhelmingly one-sided. Over 98% of voters vote for Bougainville's independence.
A non-binding independence referendum was held in Bougainville, an autonomous region of Papua New Guinea, between 23 November and 7 December 2019. The referendum question presented a choice between...
The Food and Drug Administration issues an Emergency Use Authorization on the PfizerâBioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, the first COVID-19 vaccine to be approved by the agency.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is a federal agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The FDA is responsible for protecting and promoting public health...