History of the Day for:
April 11
- 1814: Napoleon Bonaparte abdicated as emperor of France.
- 1876: The stenotype was patented by John C. Zachos of New York City.
- 1898: President McKinley asked Congress for a declaration of war against Spain.
- 1921: Iowa became the first state to impose a cigarette tax; Pittsburgh sports writer Florent Gibson relayed the first live sports event on radio, a KDKA account of a lightweight boxing match between Johnny Ray and Johnny Dundee.
- 1945: American soldiers liberated the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany.
- 1947: Jackie Robinson became the first black baseball player to play in the major leagues when he participated in an exhibition game for the Brooklyn Dodgers.
- 1951: Korean War: President Harry Truman relieves General Douglas MacArthur of overall command in Korea.
- 1953: Oveta Culp Hobby became the first Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare.
- 1961: Bob Dylan made his professional singing debut in Greenwich Village.
- 1968: President Johnson signed into law the Civil Rights Act.
- 1970: "Apollo 13" blasted off on a mission to the moon that was disrupted when an explosion crippled the spacecraft.
- 1980: The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued regulations specifically prohibiting sexual harassment of workers by supervisors.
- 1988: "The Last Emperor" won Best Picture at the 60th annual Academy Awards. Other winners included Cher (Best Actress for "Moonstruck") and Michael Douglas (Best Actor for "Wall Street").
- 1990: Customs officers in Middlesbrough, United Kingdom, say they have seized what they believe to be the barrel of a massive gun on a ship bound for Iraq.
- 1993: 450 prisoners rioted at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, Ohio, and continued to do so for ten days, citing grievances related to prison conditions, as well as the forced vaccination of Nation of Islam prisoners (for tuberculosis) against their religious beliefs.
- 2000: AT&T Park in San Francisco, Minute Maid Park in Houston, and Comerica Park in Detroit open.
- 2001: The detained crew of a United States EP-3E aircraft that landed in Hainan, People's Republic of China after a collision with an J-8 fighter is released.
- 2002: The Ghriba synagogue bombing by Al Qaeda kills 21 in Tunisia.
- 2002: An attempted coup d'état in Venezuela against President Hugo Chávez takes place.
- 2006: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announces that Iran has successfully enriched uranium.
- 2007: 2007 Algiers bombings: Two bombings in the Algerian capital of Algiers, kills 33 people and wounds a further 222 others.
- 2008: Babec, the first gorilla to have a pacemaker installed, is euthanized at the Birmingham Zoo in Birmingham, Alabama.