June 11
Today, in the United Kingdom, is the
Queen's Official Birthday.
1184 BC
Trojan War:
Troy is sacked and burned, according to calculations by
Eratosthenes.
1509
Henry VIII of England marries
Catherine of Aragon.
1770 British explorer
Captain James Cook runs aground on the
Great Barrier Reef.
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.
1919
Sir Barton wins the
Belmont Stakes, becoming the first horse to win the
U.S. Triple Crown.
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 first coin the political phrase
"smoke-filled room".
1935 Inventor
Edwin Armstrong gives the first public demonstration of
FM broadcasting in the United States at Alpine, New Jersey.
1949 -
Hank Williams, Sr. made his debut at the
'Grand Ole Opry' in Nashville and received an unprecedented total of six encores.
1955 Eighty-three spectators are killed and at least 100 are injured after an
Austin-Healey and a Mercedes-Benz collide at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the deadliest ever accident in motorsports.
1960 - Drummer
Tommy Moore made the fateful decision to quit
The Beatles and return to his job of driving a forklift at Garston bottle works.
1962 Frank Morris, John Anglin and Clarence Anglin allegedly become the only prisoners to
escape from the prison on Alcatraz Island.
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.
Buddhist monk
Thνch Quảng Đức burns himself with gasoline in a busy Saigon intersection to protest the lack of religious freedom in South Vietnam.
John F. Kennedy addresses Americans from the Oval Office proposing the
Civil Rights Act of 1964 that would revolutionize American society.
1966 - European radio stations mistakenly reported that
The Who's lead singer
Roger Daltrey was dead. Actually, it was guitarist
Pete Townshend who had been injured in a car accident a few days earlier.
1970 After being appointed on May 15,
Anna Mae Hays and
Elizabeth P. Hoisington officially receive their ranks as U.S. Army Generals, becoming the first females to do so.
1971 The U.S. Government forcibly removes the last holdouts to the
Native American Occupation of Alcatraz, ending 19 months of control.
1987
Diane Abbott,
Paul Boateng and
Bernie Grant are elected as the first black Parliamentarians in Great Britain.
1993 The film
"Jurassic Park" is released in the United States, becoming the highest-grossing film of all time until the release of
"Titanic" in 1997.
1998
Compaq Computer pays US$9 billion for
Digital Equipment Corporation.
2001 Timothy McVeigh is executed for his role in the
Oklahoma City bombing.
2002
Antonio Meucci is acknowledged as the first inventor of the telephone by the United States Congress.
Sir Paul McCartney marries
Heather Mills at St. Salvator Church, Ireland.
2003 -
Adam Ant was arrested after going berserk and stripping down in a London cafe. The former 1980's pop star had thrown stones at neighbours' homes, smashing windows before going to the nearby cafe.
2004
CassiniHuygens makes its closest flyby of the
Saturn moon Phoebe.
2005 -
Jimmy Page,
Led Zeppelin founding member and guitarist, was awarded an
OBE in the Queen of England's Birthday Honours list.
2011 -
Pink Floyd's 1973 album
The Dark Side Of The Moon, re-entered the Billboard Album chart at No. 47, and reached the milestone of 1,000 weeks on Billboard's charts. The album which was released in 1973 has done consistently well reaching No.1 on more than one occasion.
Births
1864 Richard Strauss; 1888 Bartolomeo Vanzetti (of
Sacco & Vanzetti); 1910 Jacques Cousteau; 1913 Vince Lombardi; 1915 Magda Gabor (older sister to Zsa Zsa & Eva); 1925 William Styron; 1930 Charles Rangel; 1932 Athol Fugard; 1933 Gene Wilder; 1937 Chad Everett; 1939 Christina Crawford (author of
'Mommie Dearest', daughter of
Joan Crawford), Jackie Stewart; 1943 Henry Hill; 1945 Adrienne Barbeau; 1947 Richard Palmer-James; 1949 Frank Beard (the unbeared member of
ZZ Top); 1950 Graham Russell (
Air Supply); 1952 Donnie Van Zant; 1954 Johnny Neel (
Allman Bros.); 1956 Joe Montana; 1959 Hugh Laurie; 1965 Manuel Uribe (third
heaviest man ever recorded); 1969 Peter Dinklage; 1982 Marco Arment (co-creator
Tumblr); 1986 Shia LaBeouf
Deaths
1879 William, Prince of Orange; 1920 William F. Halsey, Sr. (father of
Fleet Admiral William F. "Bull" Halsey, Jr.); 1941 Daniel Carter Beard (
Boy Scouts of America); 1979 John Wayne

; 1999 DeForest Kelley ('Dr. McCoy' in
"Star Trek"); 2001 Timothy McVeigh; 2003 David Brinkley; 2014 Ruby Dee; 2015 Jim Ed Brown; 2015 Ornette Coleman; 2015 Dusty Rhodes