On this day: December 11

Events on December 11

• 861 The Abbasid caliph al-Mutawakkil was assassinated by his guards, beginning the Anarchy at Samarra. Wikipedia
• 1640 A crowd of 1,500 people presented the Root and Branch petition to the Long Parliament, calling for abolishing the episcopacy of the Church of England. Wikipedia
• 1789 The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, one of the oldest public universities in the United States and the only one to award degrees in the 18th century, was chartered. Wikipedia
• 1792 French Revolution: King Louis XVI of France is put on trial for treason by the National Convention. Wikipedia
• 1816 Indiana becomes the 19th U.S. state. Wikipedia
• 1886 The London-based football club Arsenal, then known as Dial Square, played their first match on the Isle of Dogs. Wikipedia
• 1899 Second Boer War: In the Battle of Magersfontein, Boers defeated British forces trying to relieve the Siege of Kimberley. Wikipedia
• 1907 The original Parliament House in Wellington, New Zealand, was destroyed by fire. Wikipedia
• 1920 Irish War of Independence: Following an Irish Republican Army ambush of an Auxiliary patrol, British forces burned and looted numerous buildings in Cork. Wikipedia
• 1925 Pope Pius XI promulgated the encyclical Quas primas, establishing the Feast of Christ the King. Wikipedia
• 1936 Abdication Crisis: Edward VIII's abdication as King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions beyond the Seas, and Emperor of India, becomes effective. Wikipedia
• 1941 World War II: Germany and Italy declare war on the United States, following the Americans' declaration of war on the Empire of Japan in the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor. The United States, in turn, declares war on them. Wikipedia
• 1946 The United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) is established. Wikipedia
• 1948 Arab–Israeli War: The United Nations passes General Assembly Resolution 194, creating a Conciliation Commission to mediate the conflict. Wikipedia
• 1964 Che Guevara speaks at the United Nations General Assembly in New York City. Wikipedia
• 1972 Apollo 17, the last Apollo mission, landed on the Moon. Wikipedia
• 1988 A Soviet Air Force Il-76 aircraft crashes while participating in the Armenian earthquake relief, killing 78 people. Wikipedia
• 1994 First Chechen War: Russian president Boris Yeltsin orders Russian troops into Chechnya. Wikipedia
• 1997 The Kyoto Protocol, an agreement committing countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, opens for signature. Wikipedia
• 2001 China joins the World Trade Organization (WTO). Wikipedia
• 2005 Demonstrations in Cronulla, a suburb of Sydney, against recent violence towards locals turned into a series of race riots. Wikipedia
• 2006 The first action in the Mexican drug war began as President Felipe Calderón ordered Mexican soldiers and Federal Police units into the state of Michoacán. Wikipedia
• 2006 Criticized worldwide as a "meeting of Holocaust deniers", the International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust opened in Tehran. Wikipedia
• 2008 American stockbroker Bernie Madoff was arrested and charged with securities fraud in a $64.8 billion Ponzi scheme, the largest in history. Wikipedia
• 2009 Finnish game developer Rovio Entertainment releases the hit mobile game Angry Birds internationally on iOS. Wikipedia
• 2024 Urfan Sharif and Beinash Batool were found guilty of the murder of Sara Sharif, and were sentenced to life imprisonment. Wikipedia

Born on December 11

• 1475 Pope Leo X (died 1521) Wikipedia
• 1781 David Brewster, Scottish physicist, mathematician, and astronomer (died 1868) Wikipedia
• 1803 Hector Berlioz, French composer, conductor, and critic (died 1869) Wikipedia
• 1810 Alfred de Musset, French dramatist, poet, and novelist (died 1857) Wikipedia
• 1843 Robert Koch, German microbiologist and physician, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1910) Wikipedia
• 1856 Georgi Plekhanov, Russian philosopher, theorist, and author (died 1918) Wikipedia
• 1863 Annie Jump Cannon, American astronomer and academic (died 1941) Wikipedia
• 1882 Max Born, German physicist and mathematician, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1970) Wikipedia
• 1890 Carlos Gardel, French-Argentinian singer-songwriter and actor (died 1935) Wikipedia
• 1911 Naguib Mahfouz, Egyptian author, playwright, and screenwriter, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2006) Wikipedia
• 1913 Jean Marais, French actor and director (died 1998) Wikipedia
• 1918 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Russian novelist, historian, and short story writer, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2008) Wikipedia
• 1930 Jean-Louis Trintignant, French actor, director, and screenwriter (died 2022) Wikipedia
• 1931 Rajneesh, Indian guru, mystic, and educator (died 1990) Wikipedia
• 1931 Rita Moreno, Puerto Rican actress, singer, and dancer Wikipedia
• 1935 Pranab Mukherjee, Indian journalist and politician, 13th President of India (died 2020) Wikipedia
• 1943 John Kerry, American lieutenant, lawyer, and politician, 68th United States Secretary of State Wikipedia
• 1961 Macky Sall, Senegalese engineer and politician, fourth President of Senegal Wikipedia
• 1968 Emmanuelle Charpentier, French researcher in microbiology, genetics and biochemistry, and Nobel laureate Wikipedia
• 1969 Viswanathan Anand, Indian chess player Wikipedia
• 1984 Leighton Baines, English footballer Wikipedia
• 1996 Hailee Steinfeld, American actress, singer and songwriter Wikipedia

Died on December 11

• 384 Pope Damasus I (born c.304) Wikipedia
• 969 Nikephoros II Phokas, Byzantine emperor (born 912) Wikipedia
• 1198 Averroes, Spanish astronomer, physicist, and philosopher (born 1126) Wikipedia
• 1241 Ögedei Khan, Mongolian emperor (born 1186) Wikipedia
• 1282 Michael VIII Palaiologos, Byzantine emperor (born 1225) Wikipedia
• 1474 Henry IV of Castile, King of the Crown of Castile (born 1425) Wikipedia
• 1582 Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, 3rd Duke of Alba, Spanish general and politician, 12th Constable of Portugal (born 1508) Wikipedia
• 1826 Maria Leopoldina of Austria (born 1797) Wikipedia
• 1918 Ivan Cankar, Slovenian author, poet, and playwright (born 1876) Wikipedia
• 1938 Christian Lous Lange, Norwegian historian and educator, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1869) Wikipedia
• 1964 Sam Cooke, American singer-songwriter (born 1931) Wikipedia
• 1978 Vincent du Vigneaud, American biochemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1901) Wikipedia
• 2012 Ravi Shankar, Indian-American sitar player and composer (born 1920) Wikipedia
• 2021 Anne Rice, American author (born 1941) Wikipedia

Holidays and observances

• Christian feast day: Cian Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Daniel the Stylite Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: María de las Maravillas de Jesús Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Pope Damasus I Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Sabinus of Piacenza Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Victoricus, Fuscian, and Gentian Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: December 11 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics) Wikipedia
• Establishment of Kurdish Women's Union (Iraqi Kurdistan) Wikipedia
• Indiana Day (United States) Wikipedia
• International Mountain Day Wikipedia
• National Tango Day (Argentina) Wikipedia
• Pampanga Day (Pampanga province, Philippines) Wikipedia
• Republic Day, the day when Upper Volta became an autonomous republic in the French Community in 1958. (Burkina Faso) Wikipedia

Sources

• Wikipedia — “December 11” — events, births, deaths and observances (text under CC BY-SA 4.0) (checked 2026-10-15)
• Wikipedia — “Selected anniversaries/December 11” — the anniversaries editors chose for the date and the article each one is about (checked 2026-10-15)
• Wikidata — in how many language editions each entry's own article exists, used to fill the lists (CC0) (checked 2026-10-15)
• vacanza/holidays (open-source holiday rules, MIT licence) — holiday rules used to build the lists (checked 2026-10-15)

The events, births, deaths and observances above are from the English Wikipedia article “December 11” and the articles it links to (authors and history), retrieved 2026-10-15 through the Wikimedia “On this day” feed. They are licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0; this selection is shared under the same licence. Every anniversary that Wikipedia's editors selected for December 11 stays on the list; the remaining places, up to 26 events, 22 births and 14 deaths, go to the entries whose own article — about the event itself, or else the person or thing it is about — appears in the most language editions (counted from Wikidata); an article about a person or thing, which covers far more than one day, counts half. An entry with no article of its own counts, also at half, by the least covered article it links, and one that links only places counts for nothing. Each list runs by year, and the wording is unchanged apart from removing references to pictures, audio and video.