History of the Day for:
December 11
- 1719: The first recorded sighting of the Aurora Borealis took place in New England.
- 1792: France's King Louis XVI went before the Convention, which had replaced the National Assembly, to face charges of treason.
- 1816: Indiana was admitted to the union as the 19th state.
- 1866: The first yacht race took place across the Atlantic Ocean.
- 1872: America's first black governor took office as Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback became acting governor of Louisiana.
- 1882: Boston's Bijou Theatre, the first American playhouse lit exclusively by electricity, had its first performance, Gilbert and Sullivan's "Iolanthe."
- 1901: Guglielmo Marconi sent the first transatlantic radio signal from Cornwall to Newfoundland.
- 1928: Police in Buenos Aires thwarted an attempt on the life of President-elect Herbert Hoover.
- 1937: Italy withdrew from the League of Nations.
- 1939: Singer Betty Grable and her famous legs were featured on the cover of "LIFE" magazine.
- 1941: The Japanese attacked Wake Island.
- 1941: Four days after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States; the U.S. responded in kind.
- 1946: John D. Rockefeller Jr. donated a six-block plot of Manhattan real estate in New York City for use as world headquarters of the United Nations.
- 1946: The United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) was established.
- 1951: Joe DiMaggio announced his retirement from baseball.
- 1953: KTVA-TV Channel 11 in Anchorage (CBS) became Alaska's first TV station.
- 1961: A U.S. aircraft carrier carrying Army helicopters arrived in Saigon, the first direct American military support for South Vietnam's battle against Communist guerillas.
- 1970: John Lennon released his first album since the Beatles breakup: "John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band".
- 1972: British rock group Genesis made their U.S. concert debut at Brandeis University in Boston.
- 1981: Muhammad Ali's 61st and last fight, a loss to Trevor Berbick, took place.
- 1990: Ivana Trump was divorced from real estate mogul Donald Trump after 12 years of marriage.
- 1991: United Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.) dissolved after 74 years.
- 1991: A jury in West Palm Beach, Fla., acquitted William Kennedy Smith of sexual assault and battery, rejecting the allegations of Patricia Bowman, who said Smith had raped her.
- 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 were 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.
- 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 arrested and charged with securities fraud in $50 billion Ponzi scheme.