Historical Events on this Day in History

May 11

• 330 – Byzantium is renamed Nova Roma during a dedication ceremony, but it is more popularly referred to as Constantinople.
• 912 – Alexander becomes Emperor of the Byzantine Empire.
• 1310 – In France, fifty-four members of the Knights Templar are burned at the stake as heretics.
• 1502 – Christopher Columbus leaves for his fourth and final voyage to the West Indies.
• 1647 – Peter Stuyvesant arrives in New Amsterdam to replace Willem Kieft as Director-General of New Netherland, the Dutch colonial settlement in present-day New York City.
• 1745 – War of Austrian Succession: Battle of Fontenoy – French forces defeat an Anglo-Dutch-Hanoverian army.
• 1792 – Captain Robert Gray becomes the first documented white person to sail into the Columbia River.
• 1812 – Prime Minister Spencer Perceval is assassinated by John Bellingham in the lobby of the House of Commons, London.
• 1813 – In Australia, William Lawson, Gregory Blaxland and William Wentworth lead an expedition westwards from Sydney. Their route opens up inland Australia for continued expansion throughout the 19th century.
• 1820 – Launch of HMS Beagle, the ship that took Charles Darwin on his scientific voyage.
• 1857 – Indian Mutiny: Indian rebels seize Delhi from the British.
• 1858 – Minnesota is admitted as the 32nd U.S. State.
• 1862 – American Civil War: The ironclad CSS Virginia is scuttled in the James River northwest of Norfolk, Virginia.
• 1867 – Luxembourg gains its independence.
• 1880 – Seven people are killed in the Mussel Slough Tragedy, a gun battle in California
• 1891 – The Ōtsu incident : Tsarevich Nicholas Alexandrovich of Imperial Russia (later Nicholas II) suffers a critical head injury during a sword attack by Japanese policeman Tsuda Sanzō. He is rescued by Prince George of Greece and Denmark.
• 1894 – Pullman Strike: Four thousand Pullman Palace Car Company workers go on a wildcat strike in Illinois.
• 1907 – A derailment outside Lompoc, California kills 32 Shriners when their chartered train derails at a switch near Surf Depot.
• 1910 – An act of the U.S. Congress establishes Glacier National Park in Montana.
• 1918 – The Mountainous Republic of the Northern Caucasus is officially established.
• 1924 – Mercedes-Benz is formed by Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz merging their two companies.
• 1927 – The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is founded.
• 1942 – William Faulkner's collections of short stories, Go Down, Moses, is published.
• 1943 – World War II: American troops invade Attu Island in the Aleutian Islands in an attempt to expel occupying Japanese forces.
• 1944 – World War II: The Allies begin a major offensive against the Axis Powers on the Gustav Line.
• 1945 – World War II: Off the coast of Okinawa, the aircraft carrier USS Bunker Hill, is hit by two kamikazes, killing 346 of her crew. Although badly damaged, the ship is able to return to the U.S. under her own power.
• 1946 – UMNO is created.
• 1949 – Siam officially changes its name to Thailand for the second time. The name had been in use since 1939 but was reverted in 1945.
• 1949 – Israel joins the United Nations.
• 1953 – The 1953 Waco tornado outbreak: an F5 tornado hits downtown Waco, Texas, killing 114.
• 1960 – In Buenos Aires, Argentina, four Israeli Mossad agents capture fugitive Nazi Adolf Eichmann who is living under the alias of Ricardo Klement.
• 1967 – Andreas Papandreou, Greek economist and socialist politician, is imprisoned in Athens by the Greek military junta.
• 1968 – The Toronto Transit Commission opens the largest expansion of its Bloor–Danforth line, going to Scarborough in the East, and Etobicoke in the West.
• 1970 – The Lubbock Tornado, a F5 tornado, hits Lubbock, Texas, killing 26 and causing $250 million in damage.
• 1973 – Citing government misconduct, Daniel Ellsberg has charges for his involvement in releasing the Pentagon Papers to The New York Times dismissed.
• 1985 – Bradford City stadium fire: Fifty-six spectators die and more than 200 are injured in a flash fire at Valley Parade football ground during a match against Lincoln City in Bradford, England.
• 1987 – Klaus Barbie goes on trial in Lyon for war crimes committed during World War II.
• 1987 – In Baltimore, Maryland, the first heart-lung transplant takes place. The surgery is performed by Dr. Bruce Reitz of the Stanford University School of Medicine.
• 1995 – In New York City more than 170 countries decide to extend the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty indefinitely and without conditions.
• 1996 – After the aircraft's departure from Miami, Florida, a fire started by improperly handled oxygen canisters in the cargo hold of Atlanta-bound ValuJet Flight 592 causes the Douglas DC-9 to crash in the Florida Everglades killing all 110 on board.
• 1996 – The 1996 Everest disaster: on a single day eight people die during summit attempts on Mount Everest .
• 1997 – IBM Deep Blue, a chess-playing supercomputer, defeats Garry Kasparov in the last game of the rematch, becoming the first computer to beat a world-champion chess player in a classic match format.
• 1998 – India conducts three underground atomic tests in Pokhran to include a thermonuclear device.
• 2000 – Second Chechen War: Chechen separatists ambush Russian paramilitary forces in the Republic of Ingushetia.