11 June 2025 (MIA)

1184 BC – Trojan War: Troy is sacked and burned, according to calculations by Eratosthenes.

631 – Emperor Taizong of Tang, the Emperor of China, sends envoys to the Xueyantuo bearing gold and silk in order to seek the release of enslaved Chinese prisoners captured during the transition from Sui to Tang from the northern frontier; this embassy succeeded in freeing 80,000 Chinese men and women who were then returned to China.

786 – A Hasanid Alid uprising in Mecca is crushed by the Abbasids at the Battle of Fakhkh. Idris ibn Abdallah flees to the Maghreb, where he later founds the Idrisid dynasty.

1157 – Albert I of Brandenburg, also called, The Bear (Ger: Albrecht der Bar), becomes the founder of the Margraviate of Brandenburg, Germany and the first Margrave.

1345 – The megas doux Alexios Apokaukos, chief minister of the Byzantine Empire, is lynched by political prisoners.

1488 – Battle of Sauchieburn: Fought between rebel Lords and James III of Scotland, resulting in the death of the King.

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.

1788 – Russian explorer Gerasim Izmailov reaches Alaska.

1805 – A fire consumes large portions of Detroit in the Michigan Territory.

1837 – The Broad Street Riot occurs in Boston, fueled by ethnic tensions between Yankees and Irish.

1892 – The Limelight Department, one of the world’s first film studios, is officially established in Melbourne, Australia.

1895 – Paris–Bordeaux–Paris is sometimes called the first automobile race in history or the “first motor race”.

1898 – The Hundred Days’ Reform is started by Guangxu Emperor with a plan to change social, political and educational institutions in China, but is suspended by Empress Dowager Cixi after 104 days. The failed reform though led to the abolition of the Imperial examination in 1905.

1901 – The boundaries of the Colony of New Zealand are extended by the UK to include the Cook Islands.

1903 – A group of Serbian officers stormed royal palace and assassinated King Alexander Obrenović and his wife queen Draga.

1917 – King Alexander assumes the throne of Greece after his father Constantine I abdicates under pressure by allied armies occupying Athens.

1935 – Inventor Edwin Armstrong gives the first public demonstration of FM broadcasting in the United States at Alpine, New Jersey.

1936 – The London International Surrealist Exhibition opens.

1937 – Great Purge: The Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin executes eight army leaders.

1942 – Free French Forces retreat from Bir Hakeim after having successfully delayed the Axis advance.

1944 – USS Missouri, the last battleship built by the United States Navy and future site of the signing of the Japanese Instrument of Surrender, is commissioned.

1956 – Start of Gal Oya riots, the first reported ethnic riots that target minority Sri Lankan Tamils in the Eastern Province. The total number of deaths is reportedly 150.

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.

1963 – John F. Kennedy addresses Americans from the Oval Office proposing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that would revolutionize American society. Proposing equal access to public facilities, end segregation in education and guarantee federal protection for voting rights.

1968 – Lloyd J. Old identified the first cell surface antigens that could differentiate among different cell types.

1971 – The U.S. Government forcibly removes the last holdouts to the Native American Occupation of Alcatraz, ending 19 months of control.

1978 – Altaf Hussain founds the students’ political movement All Pakistan Muhajir Students Organisation (APMSO) in Karachi University.

1981 – A magnitude 6.9 earthquake at Golbaf, Iran, kills at least 2,000.

1987 – Diane Abbott, Paul Boateng and Bernie Grant are elected as the first black Parliamentarians in Great Britain.

1998 – Compaq Computer pays US$9 billion for Digital Equipment Corporation in the largest high-tech acquisition.

2004 – Cassini–Huygens makes its closest flyby of the Saturn moon Phoebe.

2008 – Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper makes a historic official apology to Canada’s First Nations in regard to a residential school abuse in which children are isolated from their homes, families and cultures for a century.

2008 – The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is launched into orbit.

2012 – More than 80 people die in a landslide triggered by two earthquakes in Afghanistan; an entire village is buried.

2013 – Shenzhou 10, China’s fifth manned spaceflight mission and the second and final one to the Tiangong-1 space laboratory, is launched with 3 taikonauts on a 15-day mission.

2015 – Macedonian actor Blagoja Spirkoski Dzumerko died aged 69. An enormous presence in the Prilep National Theater, he was best known for his role in the comedy Solunski Patrdii.

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