December 11

Independence Day
South Africa : December 11 1931

Events December 11

361 – Julian the Apostate enters Constantinople as sole Emperor of the Roman Empire.
969 – Byzatine Emperor Nikephoros II is assassinated by his wife Theofano and her lover, the later Emperor John I Tzimiskes.
1282 – Llywelyn the Last, the last native Prince of Wales, is killed at Cilmeri, near Builth Wells, south Wales.
1602 – A surprise attack by forces under the command of the Duke of Savoy and his brother-in-law, Philip III of Spain, is repelled by the citizens of Geneva.
1789 – The University of North Carolina is chartered by the North Carolina General Assembly.
1792 – French Revolution: King Louis XVI of France is put on trial for treason by the National Convention.
1815 – the U.S. Senate created a select committee on finance and a uniform national currency, predecessor of the United States Senate Committee on Finance.
1816 – Indiana becomes the 19th U.S. state.
1868 – Brazilians defeat Paraguayans at the Battle of Avaí during the Paraguayan War.
1905 – A workers' uprising occurs in Kiev and establishes the Shuliavka Republic.
1907 – The New Zealand Parliament Buildings are almost completely destroyed by fire.
1917 – British General Edmund Allenby enters Jerusalem on foot and declares martial law.
1925 – Roman Catholic papal encyclical Quas Primas introduces the Feast of Christ the King.
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.
1931 – The British Parliament enacts the Statute of Westminster 1931, establishing legislative equality between the self-governing dominions of the Commonwealth of Australia, the Dominion of Canada, the Irish Free State, Dominion of Newfoundland, the Dominion of New Zealand, and the Union of South Africa.
1934 – Bill Wilson, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, takes his last drink and enters treatment for the last time.
1936 – Abdication Crisis: Edward VIII's abdication as King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the British Dominions beyond the Seas, and Emperor of India becomes effective.
1937 – Second Italo-Abyssinian War: Italy leaves the League of Nations.
1941 – World War II: Germany and Italy declare war on the United States, following the Americans' declaration of war on Japan in the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor. The United States, in turn, declares war on Germany and Italy.
1946 – The United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) is established.
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.
1958 – French Upper Volta gains self-government from France, becomes the Republic of Upper Volta, and joins the French Community.
1960 – French forces crack down in a violent clash with protesters in French Algeria during a visit by French president Charles de Gaulle.
1962 – Arthur Lucas, convicted of murder, is the last person to be executed in Canada.
1964 – Che Guevara speaks at the United Nations General Assembly in New York City.
1972 – Apollo 17 becomes the sixth and last Apollo mission to land on the Moon.
1980 – The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, also known as CERCLA or Superfund, is enacted by the U.S. Congress.
1981 – El Mozote massacre: Armed forces in El Salvador kill an estimated 900 civilians in an anti-guerrilla campaign during the Salvadoran Civil War.
1993 – Forty-eight people are killed when a block of the Highland Towers collapses near Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
1994 – First Chechen War: Russian President Boris Yeltsin orders Russian troops into Chechnya.
1994 – A bomb explodes on Philippine Airlines Flight 434, en route from Manila to Tokyo, killing one. The captain is able to safely land the plane.
1997 – The Kyoto Protocol opens for signature.
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.
2001 – The People's Republic of China joins the World Trade Organization.
2005 – The Buncefield Oil Depot catches fire in Hemel Hempstead, England.
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 Sydney. These are followed up by retaliatory ethnic attacks on Cronulla.
2006 – The International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust is opened in Tehran, Iran by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; Nations such as Israel and the United States express concern.
2006 – Felipe Calderon Hinojosa, 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.
2007 – Two car bombs explode at the Constitutional Court building in Algiers and the United Nations office. An estimated 45 people are killed in the bombings.
2008 – Bernard Madoff is arrested and charged with securities fraud in a $50 billion Ponzi scheme.

Holidays and observances

Christian Feast Day:
Daniel the Stylite
Pope Damasus I
Victoricus, Fuscian, and Gentian
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)
Remembrance Day of Llywelyn II (Wales)
Republic Day, the day when Upper Volta became an autonomous republic in the French Community in 1958. (Burkina Faso)

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