December 11
1816
Indiana became the 19th state.
1844
Nitrous oxide was used for the first time in dentistry.
1936
King Edward VIII abdicated the throne of Britain for the woman he loved, Mrs. Wallis Simpson.
1941
Germany and Italy declared war on the United States.
1946
The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) was established.
1994
Russian troups invaded Chechnya in an unsuccessful attempt to restore Moscow’s power in the region.
1997
Housing secretary Henry Cisneros was indicted for conspiracy, obstructing justice, and false statements to the FBI.
2008
Bernard Madoff, an investment manager, was charged with defrauding clients of as much as $50 billion in what might be the largest swindle in Wall Street history.
Birthdays
Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
Pronunciation: [ulyiksän´dur EsI´uvich sôl”zhunEt´sin]
Sir David Brewster
physicist and natural philosopher (1781)
Louis-Hector Berlioz
composer (1803)
Robert Koch
bacteriologist (1843)
Annie Jump Cannon
astronomer (1863)
Fiorello Henry LaGuardia
mayor of New York City (1882)
Naguib Mahfouz
novelist (1911)
Carlo Ponti
producer (1912)
Willie Mae Thornton
blues singer (1926)
John F. Kerry
politician (1943)
Mos Def
rapper, actor (1973)