#TodayInHistory – June 11

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June 11 – Some important events on this day.

1184 BC 👉🏼 Trojan War: Troy is sacked and burned, according to calculations by Eratosthenes
631 👉🏼 Emperor Taizong of Tang of China, sends envoys to the Xueyantuo bearing gold and silk for the release of Chinese prisoners captured during transition from Sui to Tang from northern frontier; succeeds in freeing 80,000
1144 👉🏼 Basilica of St Denis is dedicated near Paris, the first fully Gothic church ⛪️
1231 👉🏼 Harderwijk (Netherlands) becomes a city 🇳🇱
1770 👉🏼 Captain James Cook discovers Great Barrier Reef off Australia
1776 👉🏼 Continental Congress creates committee (Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston) to draft a Declaration of Independence
1870 👉🏼 1st-stone Amstel Brewery opens in Amsterdam
1891 👉🏼 Puerto Rican flag adopted 🇵🇷
1907 👉🏼 George Dennett, aided by Gilbert Jessop, dismisses Northamptonshire for 12 runs, the lowest total in first-class cricket 🏏
1938 👉🏼 5.0 Earthquake in Belgium kills 2, strongest in 45 years 🇧🇪
1952 👉🏼 Opening batsman Len Hutton becomes the 1st professional cricketer to captain England in Tests
1955 👉🏼 Race car at Le Mans crashes into spectators, killing 82
1962 👉🏼 Brothers John and Clarence Anglin and fellow inmate Frank Morris escape from Alcatraz Island prison, the only ones to do so

1963 👉🏼 Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức immolates himself at a Saigon intersection, creating one of the Vietnam War’s most iconic images.
The Buddhist crisis in Vietnam throughout 1963 precipitated the downfall and assassination of South Vietnamese president Ngô Đình Diệm. It began with the shooting of nine civilians in Hue who were protesting the ban on the Buddhist flag.
On this day, monk Thích Quảng Đức sat down at a busy Saigon intersection, doused himself in petrol and set himself alight. He did not utter a sound as he died. John F. Kennedy said that “No news picture in history has generated so much emotion around the world as that one.” Malcolm Browne, the photographer, won a Pulitzer Prize for this image.

1975 👉🏼 Greece adopts constitution 🇬🇷
1982 👉🏼 “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial”, directed by Steven Spielberg, starring Henry Thomas and Drew Barrymore, is released 👽
1987 👉🏼 Margaret Thatcher is 1st British Prime Minister in 160 years to win a third consecutive term
1993 👉🏼 “Jurassic Park”, directed by Steven Spielberg, starring Sam Neill and Jeff Goldblum opens, sets box office weekend record of $502 million 🦖

2009 👉🏼 The World Health Organization declares H1N1 swine flu to be a global pandemic, the first such incident in over forty years.
In March 2009, a new strain of H1N1 influenza virus began circulating in Mexico and, from there, the virus rapidly spread around the world. The World Health Organization declared on this day that swine flu was the first pandemic of the 21st century.
Between 10-200 million people were infected with this particular strain of flu, and about 18,500 lab confirmed deaths occurred, and possibly as meany as 150,000 people died. Because this is less than the seasonal flu and was less than epidemiologists expected, the decision by the World Health Organization to declare swine flu a pandemic was controversial.
Swine flu was abnormal as it did not predominantly affect adults over 60. The pandemic began to taper off in November 2009 with cases falling sharply afterward until the WHO declared an end to the global outbreak on 10 August 2010.