October 11 โ Some important events on this day.
1138 ๐๐ผ Earthquake in Aleppo, Syria, kills an estimated 230,000
1634 ๐๐ผ Burchardi flood โ โthe second Grote Mandrenkeโ kills about 15,000 in North Friesland, Denmark and Germany
1737 ๐๐ผ Earthquake kills 300,000 and destroys half of Calcutta, India
1746 ๐๐ผ Battle of Rocoux: French defeat British, Austrian and Dutch armies
1797 ๐๐ผ Battle of Camperdown (Kamperduin): British navy defeats Dutch fleet
1811 ๐๐ผ The Juliana, 1st steam-powered ferryboat, begins operation
1852 ๐๐ผ The University of Sydney, Australiaโs oldest university, is inaugurated in Sydney.
1881 ๐๐ผ David Houston patents roll film for cameras
1915 ๐๐ผ Bulgaria enters World War I
1922 ๐๐ผ First woman FBI โspecial investigatorโ, Alaska Davidson, appointed
1939 ๐๐ผ Albert Einstein informs FDR of the possibilities of an atomic bomb
1945 ๐๐ผ Chinese civil war begins between Kuomintang government led by Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedongโs Communist Party
1962 ๐๐ผ Second Vatican Council (21st ecumenical) convened by Pope John XXIII
1971 ๐๐ผ John Lennonโs โImagineโ is released
1986 ๐๐ผ Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev open talks at a summit in Reykjavik, Iceland.
One was the conservative icon of the American right, who once lambasted Russia as an โevil empireโ, the other the communist leader of the Soviet Union, and together they forged an unlikely relationship to deescalate the Cold War.
Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev met at Reykjavik in Iceland for two days in October 1986. While Gorbachev sought to limit the talks strictly to arms control, while Reagan wanted to include talks about human rights in the Soviet Union.
The talks collapsed at the last minute, but the significant progress nonetheless led to the signing of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 1987, an important agreement in the reduction of Cold War tensions between the US and the USSR.
1987 ๐๐ผ 200,000 march for gay and lesbian civil rights in Washington, D.C.