Factsville.com / On This Day / December / 11th of December Facts

1 - 20 of 20 Interesting & Fun 11th of December Facts:

1792 - French Revolution: King Louis XVI of France is put on trial for treason by the National Convention.

1872 - P.B.S. Pinchback is sworn in as the first black member of the U.S. House of Representatives.

1934 - A fire at the Hotel Kerns in Lansing, Michigan, kills 34 people.

1937 - Second Italo-Abyssinian War: Italy leaves the League of Nations

1941 - World War II: Germany and Italy declare war on the United States.

1946 - The United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) is established.

1951 - Joe DiMaggio announces his retirement from baseball.

1958 - Upper Volta declares its independence from France, and becomes an autonomous republic in the French Community.

1961 - Melvin Calvin Awarded Nobel Prize in Chemistry for process of photosynthesis.

1964 - An unknown terrorist fired a mortar shell at the United Nations building in New York City during a speech by Che Guevara

1970 - John Lennon releases the album Plastic Ono Band.

1972 - Apollo 17 becomes the sixth mission to land on the Moon.

1981 - In his last fight, Muhammad Ali is defeated by Trevor Berbick.

1981 - El Mozote massacre: Salvadoran armed forces kill an estimated 900 civilians in an anti-guerrilla campaign during the country's civil war.

1993 - Forty-eight people are killed when a block of the Highland Towers collapses near Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

1994 - First Chechen War: Russian President Boris Yeltsin orders Russian troops into Chechnya

1994 - A bomb assembled by Ramzi Yousef explodes on Philippine Airlines Flight 434, killing a Japanese businessman.

1997 - The Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change opens for signature.

1998 - A Thai Airways Airbus A310-200 crashes near Surat Thani Airport, killing 101.

2001 - The People's Republic of China joins the World Trade Organization.