#TodayInHistory – March 11
3 min read
March 11 – Some Important Events on this day
1425 BC 👉🏼 According to the Low Chronology of the 18th Dynasty, Thutmose III, Pharaoh of Egypt dies. 🇪🇬
843 👉🏼 Icon veneration officially re-instated in Hagia Sophia Cathedral in Constantinople 🇹🇷
The Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom) is the third church to be built in this site. The Byzantine emperor Justinian I ordered its construction in 532 after riots destroyed an earlier church on its site in Istanbul. It was finished in just five years in 537 and was then the world’s largest building. It served as the Greek Orthodox cathedral and was the place where Eastern Emperors were crowned. Regarded as the height of Byzantine architecture it is famous for its massive dome and for its mosaic decoration inside. It stood as the world’s largest church for nearly a thousand years, only surpassed by Seville’s cathedral in 1520. After the conquest of Istanbul by Fatih Sultan Mehmed in 1453 the church was converted into a mosque. In 1935 Mustafa Kemal Atatürk made it into a museum, which it remains still today.
1669 👉🏼 Volcano Etna in Italy erupts killing 15,000 people 🌋
1845 👉🏼 The Flagstaff War: In New Zealand, Chiefs Hone Heke and Kawiti lead 700 Māoris to chop down the British flagpole and drive settlers out of the British colonial settlement of Kororareka because of breaches of the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi. Designed to share sovereignty between the British Crown and Māori chiefs the Treaty of Waitangi is the founding document of New Zealand.
Although intended to create unity, different translations, understandings of the treaty and breaches of it, have caused conflict.
However, from the 1970s the New Zealand public gradually came to know more about the treaty and efforts to honour the treaty and its principles expanded. 🇳🇿
1851 👉🏼 Giuseppe Verdi’s opera “Rigoletto” premieres in Venice 🇮🇹
1855 👉🏼 Bowery Boys gang leader William Poole aka “Bill the Butcher” is buried in Brooklyn with 155 carriages and 6,000 mourners
1869 👉🏼 The West first learns of the Giant Panda via French missionary Armand David who receives a skin from a hunter 🐼
1882 👉🏼 Arctic explorer and diplomat Fridtjof Nansen sets out on a sea voyage to study Arctic zoology
1917 👉🏼 1st NHL championship game ever played, Toronto Arenas beats Montreal Canadiens 7-3 in 1st of 2 game set (second game on March 13) 🇨🇦
1918 👉🏼 Moscow becomes capital of revolutionary Russia 🇷🇺
1935 👉🏼 Hermann Goering officially creates the Luftwaffe (German Air Force) 🇩🇪
1966 👉🏼 Military coup led by Indonesian General Suharto breaks out
1967 👉🏼 Pink Floyd releases 1st single “Arnold Layne” 🎶
1971 👉🏼 Jim Morrison leaves for Paris to reorient himself emotionally and creatively and to avoid the jail sentence given to him in Miami. He will never return to the US.
1985 👉🏼 Mikhail Gorbachev replaces Konstantin Chernenko as Soviet leader
1986 👉🏼 1 million days since the foundation of Rome on April 21st, 753 BC 🇮🇹
2011 👉🏼 9.0 magnitude earthquake strikes 130 km (80 miles) east of Sendai, Japan, triggering a tsunami killing thousands of people and causing the second worst nuclear accident in history at Fukushima nuclear plant 🇯🇵 🌊
2018 👉🏼 China’s National People’s Congress approves removal of term limits for a leader, will allow Xi Jinping presidency for life