January 11 in History

The Nika riots (Greek: Στάσις τοῦ Νίκα, romanized: Stásis toû Níka), Nika revolt or Nika sedition took place against Byzantine emperor Justinian I in Constantinople over the course of a week in 532 AD. They are often regarded as the most violent riots in the city's history, with nearly half of Constantinople being burned or destroyed and tens of thousands of people killed.

The conquest of Mecca (Arabic: فتح مكة Fatḥ Makka) was a military campaign undertaken by Muhammad and his companions during the Muslim–Quraysh War. They led the early Muslims in an advance on the Quraysh-controlled city of Mecca in December 629 or January 630 (10–20 Ramadan, 8 AH). The fall of the city to Muhammad formally marked the end of the conflict between his followers and the Quraysh tribal confederation.

The Sack of Mecca occurred on 11 January 930, when the Qarmatians of Bahrayn sacked the Muslim holy city amidst the rituals of the Hajj pilgrimage. The Qarmatians, a radical Isma'ili sect established in Bahrayn since the turn of the 9th century, had previously attacked the caravans of Hajj pilgrims and even invaded and raided Iraq, the heartland of the Abbasid Caliphate, in 927–928. In 928, the Qarmatian leader Abu Tahir al-Jannabi became convinced that the long-awaited mahdi, the messiah who would usher in the end times and nullify existing religious law, had arrived in the person of a young Persian man, Abu'l-Fadl al-Isfahani. As a result, al-Jannabi led his men against Mecca in the Hajj season of winter 929–930. The Qarmatians gained entry into the city ostensibly to perform their pilgrimage, but immediately turned to attacking the pilgrims. The city was plundered for eight to eleven days, many of the pilgrims were killed and their bodies left unburied, while even the Kaaba, the holiest site of Islam, was ransacked and all its decorations and relics were taken away to Bahrayn, including the Black Stone. This act was tantamount to a complete break between the Qarmatians and the Islamic world, and was followed in 931 by the revelation of al-Isfahani as God manifest before the Qarmatian faithful. However, it soon became apparent that the mahdi was nothing of the sort, and he was murdered. Islamic law was restored in Bahrayn, and the Qarmatians entered into negotiations with the Abbasid government, which resulted in the conclusion of a peace treaty in 939, and eventually the return of the Black Stone to Mecca in 951.

Theodora Porphyrogenita (Greek: Θεοδώρα Πορφυρογέννητη, romanized: Theodṓra Porphyrogénnētē; c. 980 – 31 August 1056) was the reigning Byzantine Empress from 21 April 1042 to her death on 31 August 1056, and sole ruler from 11 January 1055. She was the last sovereign of the Macedonian dynasty, which had ruled the Byzantine Empire for almost 200 years. Theodora was the youngest daughter of Emperor Constantine VIII. After Theodora's father died in 1028, her older sister Zoë, as Augusta, co-ruled with her husbands Romanos III and Michael IV, kept Theodora closely watched. After two foiled plots, Theodora was exiled to an island monastery in the Sea of Marmara in 1031. A decade later, the people of Constantinople rose against Michael IV's nephew and successor, Michael V, and insisted that Theodora return to rule alongside Zoë. After 65 days Zoë married again, to Constantine IX, who assumed the imperial responsibilities. Theodora seemingly retired to a convent after Zoë's death in 1050. When Constantine died, the 74-year-old Theodora returned to the throne despite fierce opposition from court officials and military claimants. For 16 months she ruled as empress in her own right before succumbing to a sudden illness and dying at 76. She was the last ruler of the Macedonian line.

Vladislaus II or Vladislav II (c. 1110 – 18 January 1174) was the Duke of Bohemia from 1140 and then King of Bohemia (as Vladislaus I) from 1158 until his abdication in 1173. He was the second Bohemian king after Vratislaus II, but in neither case was the royal title hereditary. Vladislav was the son of Vladislav I and Richeza of Berg. He was married twice, first to Gertrude of Babenberg and then to Judith of Thuringia.

A lottery is a form of gambling that involves the drawing of numbers at random for a prize. Some governments outlaw lotteries, while others endorse them to the extent of organizing a national or state lottery. It is common to find some degree of regulation of lottery by governments. The most common regulations are prohibition of sale to minors and licensing of ticket vendors. Although lotteries were common in the United States and some other countries during the 19th century, by the beginning of the 20th century, most forms of gambling, including lotteries and sweepstakes, were illegal in the U.S. and most of Europe as well as many other countries. This remained so until well after World War II. In the 1960s, casinos and lotteries began to re-appear throughout the world as a means for governments to raise revenue without raising taxes.

The Arauco War was a long-running conflict between colonial Spaniards and the Mapuche people, mostly fought in the Araucanía region of Chile. The conflict began at first as a reaction by the Mapuche to the Spanish conquerors attempting to establish cities and force the natives into servitude. It subsequently evolved over time into phases comprising drawn-out sieges, slave-hunting expeditions, pillaging raids, punitive expeditions, and renewed Spanish attempts to secure lost territories. Abduction of women and war rape was common on both sides. The Spaniards penetrated into Mapuche territory during the conquest of Chile in the 16th century. They were stopped at the Battle of Curalaba in 1598 and the destruction of the Seven Cities. Afterward the two forces established a clear frontier between the Spanish domains and the land of the independent Mapuche. From the 17th to the late 18th century the Mapuche lonkos and Spanish royal governors held a series of parliaments. The war devolved to sporadic pillaging carried out by both sides. In the words of Philip II, this conflict cost the largest number of Spanish lives in the New World. It became known as the Flandes indiano ("Indian Flanders"), in reference to the Eighty Years' War in Europe.

Life insurance is a contract between an insurance policy holder and an insurer or assurer, where the insurer promises to pay a designated beneficiary a sum of money upon the death of an insured person. Depending on the contract, other events such as physical complications or illness can also trigger payment. The policyholder typically pays a premium, either regularly or as one lump sum. The benefits may include other expenses, such as funeral expenses.

Frederick William Herschel was a German–British astronomer and composer. He frequently collaborated with his younger sister and fellow astronomer Caroline Herschel. Born in the Electorate of Hanover, he followed his father into the military band of Hanover, before emigrating to Britain in 1757 at the age of 19.

The Territory of Michigan was an organized incorporated territory of the United States from the remnant of Wayne County of the Northwest Territory that existed from June 30, 1805, until January 26, 1837, when the final extent of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Michigan. Detroit was the territorial capital.

The Taiping Rebellion, also known as the Taiping Civil War, Revolution, or Movement, was a civil war in late imperial China between the Qing dynasty and the rebel Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. The conflict lasted 14 years, from its outbreak in 1850 until the fall of Taiping-controlled Nanjing—which had been renamed to Tianjing —in 1864. The last rebel forces were defeated in August 1871. Estimates of the conflict's death toll range between 20 to 30 million people, representing 5–10% of China's population at that time, while higher estimates range from 73 to 100 million, roughly up to one quarter of the Chinese population at that time, making it perhaps the deadliest civil war in all of human history. While the Qing ultimately defeated the rebellion, the victory came at a great cost to the state's economic and political viability.

The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), which was formed in 1861 by states that had seceded from the Union to preserve slavery in the United States. The South saw slavery as threatened because of the election of Abraham Lincoln and the growing abolitionist movement in the North. The war ended with Union victory, the dissolution of the Confederacy and the abolition of slavery, freeing four million African Americans. Decades of controversy over slavery came to a head when Abraham Lincoln, a Republican who opposed slavery's expansion, won the 1860 presidential election. Seven slave states in the South responded to Lincoln's victory by seceding from the United States and forming the Confederate States of America. The Confederacy seized US forts and other federal assets in the South. The war began on April 12, 1861, when the Confederacy bombarded Fort Sumter in South Carolina. A wave of enthusiasm for war swept over the North and South, as military recruitment soared. Four more Southern states seceded after the war began and, led by its president, Jefferson Davis, the Confederacy comprised eleven states, containing a third of the US population. Four years of intense combat, mostly in the South, ensued. During 1861–1862 in the western theater, the Union made permanent gains, though in the eastern theater the conflict was inconclusive. The abolition of slavery became a Union war goal on January 1, 1863, when Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared all slaves in rebel states to be free, applying to more than 3.5 million of the 4 million enslaved people in the country. To the west, the Union first destroyed the Confederacy's river navy by the summer of 1862, then much of its western armies, and seized New Orleans. The successful 1863 Union siege of Vicksburg split the Confederacy in two at the Mississippi River, while Confederate general Robert E. Lee's incursion north failed at the Battle of Gettysburg. General Ulysses S. Grant's western successes led Lincoln to promote him to command of all Union armies in 1864. Inflicting an ever-tightening naval blockade of Confederate ports, the Union marshaled resources and manpower to attack the Confederacy from all directions. This led to the fall of Atlanta in 1864 to Union general William Tecumseh Sherman, followed by his March to the Sea, which culminated in his taking Savannah. The last significant battles raged around the ten-month siege of Petersburg, gateway to the Confederate capital of Richmond. The Confederates abandoned Richmond, and on April 9, 1865, Lee surrendered to Grant following the Battle of Appomattox Court House, setting in motion the end of the war. Lincoln lived to see this victory but was shot by an assassin on April 14, dying the next day. By the end of the war, much of the South's infrastructure had been destroyed. The Confederacy collapsed, the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery, and four million enslaved black people were freed. The war-torn nation then entered the Reconstruction era in an attempt to rebuild the country, bring the former Confederate states back into the United States, and grant civil rights to freed slaves. The war is one of the most extensively studied and written about episodes in the history of the United States. It remains the subject of cultural and historiographical debate. Of continuing interest is the myth of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy. The war was among the first to use industrial warfare. Railroads, the electrical telegraph, steamships, the ironclad warship, and mass-produced weapons were widely used. The war left an estimated 700,000 soldiers dead, along with an undetermined number of civilian deaths, making it the deadliest in American history. The technology and brutality of the Civil War foreshadowed the coming world wars.

The Battle of Arkansas Post, also known as the Battle of Fort Hindman, was fought from January 9 to 11, 1863, along the Arkansas River at Arkansas Post, Arkansas, as part of the Vicksburg campaign of the American Civil War. Confederate forces constructed Fort Hindman near Arkansas Post in late 1862. Also in late 1862, Major General John A. McClernand of the Union army (as the United States Army was known during the war) was authorized to recruit troops in the Midwest for an expedition down the Mississippi River against Vicksburg, Mississippi. Union Major General Ulysses S. Grant began an overland campaign against Vicksburg along the Mississippi Central Railroad in November. He and Union General-in-Chief Henry Halleck did not trust McClernand, and through machinations placed the start of the riverine movement against Vicksburg under the command of Major General William T. Sherman before McClernand could arrive. Sherman's movement was defeated at the Battle of Chickasaw Bayou in late December, and Confederate cavalry raids forced Grant to abandon his overland campaign. McClernand arrived at Memphis, Tennessee, in late December and found that Sherman had left without him. McClernand moved downriver, joined Sherman's force, and took command in early January 1863, calling it the Army of the Mississippi. Both Sherman and McClernand had independently come to the conclusion that Arkansas Post should be attacked: Confederate forces raiding from Fort Hindman had recently captured a Union supply vessel, and Sherman may have been hoping for a victory to restore his reputation after Chickasaw Bayou. McClernand's troops and a Union Navy fleet commanded by Acting Rear Admiral David Dixon Porter moved upriver towards the Arkansas River. The expedition began unloading troops downriver from the fort late on January 9. The next day, some of Porter's warships bombarded the fort, while McClernand's troops maneuvered into position. At 1:00 pm on January 11, Porter's warships began another bombardment of the fort, and McClernand's troops attacked the Confederate positions, which consisted of the fort and a line of rifle pits that extended west to a bayou. McClernand's attack was repulsed, but white flags of surrender began to appear over parts of the Confederate line in uncertain circumstances. Confusion ensued, and Union troops moved up close to the Confederate line and swamped parts of it. The Confederate commander, Brigadier General Thomas J. Churchill, agreed to surrender. When Grant learned of the operation against Arkansas Post, he disapproved and ordered McClernand back to the Mississippi River, although Grant was later convinced of the wisdom of the operation. Grant relieved McClernand on January 30 and took command of the campaign against Vicksburg. In April and May, Grant's army crossed the Mississippi River downriver from Vicksburg and won a series of battles. The Confederate forces withdrew into the Vicksburg defenses in mid-May. The Siege of Vicksburg ended with a Confederate surrender on July 4, 1863; this was a key contribution to the eventual Union victory.

CSS Alabama was a screw sloop-of-war built in 1862 for the Confederate States Navy. She was built in Birkenhead on the River Mersey opposite Liverpool, England, by John Laird Sons and Company. Launched as Enrica, she was fitted out as a cruiser and commissioned as CSS Alabama on August 24, 1862. Under Captain Raphael Semmes, Alabama served as a successful commerce raider, attacking, capturing, and burning Union merchant and naval ships in the North Atlantic, as well as intercepting American grain ships bound for Europe. The Alabama continued through the West Indies and further into the East Indies, destroying over seven ships before returning to Europe. On June 11, 1864, the Alabama arrived at Cherbourg, France, where she was overhauled. Shortly after, a Union sloop-of-war, USS Kearsarge, arrived; and on June 19, the Battle of Cherbourg commenced outside the port of Cherbourg, France, whereby the Kearsarge sank the Alabama in approximately one hour after the Alabama's opening shot.

The Anglo-Zulu War, or simply the Zulu War, was fought in present-day South Africa from January to early July 1879 between forces of the British Empire and the Zulu Kingdom. Two famous battles of the war were the Zulu victory at Isandlwana and the British defence at Rorke's Drift. Following the passing of the British North America Act 1867 forming a federation in Canada, Lord Carnarvon thought that a similar political effort, coupled with military campaigns, might lead to a ruling white minority over a black majority in South Africa. This would yield a large pool of cheap labour for the British sugar plantations and mines, and was intended to bring the African Kingdoms, tribal areas, and Boer republics into South Africa. In 1874, Sir Bartle Frere was appointed as British High Commissioner for Southern Africa to effect such plans. Among the obstacles were the armed independent states of the South African Republic and the Zulu Kingdom. Frere, on his own initiative, sent a provocative ultimatum on 11 December 1878 to Zulu King Cetshwayo. Upon its rejection, he ordered Lord Chelmsford to invade Zululand. The war had several particularly bloody battles, including an opening victory for the Zulu at the Battle of Isandlwana, followed by the defence of Rorke's Drift by a small British Garrison from an attack by a large Zulu force. However, the British eventually gained the upper hand at Kambula, before taking the Zulu capital of Ulundi. The British eventually won the war, ending Zulu dominance of the region. The British Empire made the Zulu Kingdom a protectorate and later annexed it in 1887. The war dispelled prior colonial notions of British invincibility, due to their massive early defeats. Together with famines, diplomatic misadventures, and other unpopular wars overseas (such as the Second Anglo-Afghan War), it contributed to the ejection of Benjamin Disraeli's government from office in 1880, after only one term.

Grand Canyon National Park is a national park of the United States located in northwestern Arizona, the 15th site to have been named as a national park. The park's central feature is the Grand Canyon, a gorge of the Colorado River, which is often considered one of the Wonders of the World. The park, which covers 1,217,262 acres (1,901.972 sq mi; 4,926.08 km2) of unincorporated area in Coconino and Mohave counties, received more than 4.9 million recreational visitors in 2024. The Grand Canyon was designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1979. The park celebrated its 100th anniversary on February 26, 2019.

Lawrence is a city located in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States, on the Merrimack River. At the 2020 census the city had a population of 89,143. Surrounding communities include Methuen to the north, Andover to the southwest, and North Andover to the east. Lawrence and Salem were the county seats of Essex County, until the state abolished county government in 1999. Lawrence is part of the Merrimack Valley.

Karluk was an American-built brigantine which, after many years' service as a whaler, was acquired by the Canadian government in 1913 to act as flagship to the Canadian Arctic Expedition. While on her way to the expedition's rendezvous at Herschel Island, Karluk became trapped in the Arctic pack ice and, after drifting for several months, was crushed and sank in January 1914. Of the 25 aboard (crew and expedition staff), eleven died, either during the attempts to reach land by marching over the ice, or after arrival at the temporary refuge of Wrangel Island.

The Kingsland explosion was an incident that took place during World War I at a munitions factory in Lyndhurst, New Jersey, U.S., on January 11, 1917. An arbitration commission in 1931 determined that, "In the Kingsland Case the Commission finds upon the evidence that the fire was not caused by any German agent." However, decades later, Germany paid damages to American claimants. The Canadian Car and Foundry Company, based in Montreal, had signed large contracts with Russia and Britain for delivery of ammunition. An enormous factory was constructed in the New Jersey Meadowlands, which was then referred to as Kingsland. The company executives decided not to take any chances with security for their plant. They constructed a 6-foot-high (1.8 m) fence around the plant and hired security guards to conduct 24-hour patrols around the perimeter and screen each worker as they entered the plant. It was located on the site of Lyndhurst's present industrial park. A brick stack, believed to be the remaining part of the Foundry, is located in the area bounded by Valley Brook Avenue, Polito Avenue, and the office buildings on Wall Street West. On January 11, 1917, a fire started in Building 30 of the Canadian Car and Foundry Company at Kingsland in Bergen County, New Jersey. In four hours, probably 500,000 pieces of 3-inch (76 mm) explosive shells were discharged. The entire plant was destroyed. It was said to have been a spectacle more magnificent than the nearby 1916 explosion at Black Tom. From office buildings and tall apartments, people in New York City watched with amazement.

Leonard Thompson (17 July 1908 – 20 April 1935) was the first person to have received an injection of insulin as a treatment for type 1 diabetes.

The occupation of the Ruhr (German: Ruhrbesetzung) was the period from 11 January 1923 to 25 August 1925 when French and Belgian troops occupied the Ruhr region of Germany. The occupation of the heavily industrialized Ruhr district came in response to Germany's repeated defaults on the reparations payments required under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. The French and Belgians intended to force Germany to supply the coal and other raw materials that were part of the reparations. With the support of the German government, civilians in the area engaged in passive resistance and civil disobedience which largely shut down the economy of the region. Acts of sabotage and retaliation took place as well. An estimated 137 civilians were killed and 600 injured during the occupation. The ongoing economic crisis in Germany worsened considerably as a result of the occupation. The government paid for its support of idled workers and businesses primarily by printing paper money. This contributed to the hyperinflation that brought major hardships to Germans across the country. After Germany stabilized its currency in late 1923, France and Belgium, facing economic and international pressures of their own, accepted the 1924 Dawes Plan drawn up by an international team of experts. It restructured and lowered Germany's war reparations payments and led to France and Belgium withdrawing their troops from the Ruhr by August 1925. The occupation of the Ruhr contributed to the growth of radical right-wing movements in Germany. Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party used the occupation as part of their justification for the Beer Hall Putsch of November 1923, which brought them wide public attention for the first time.

Louis Burt Mayer (; born Lazar Meir; July 12, 1884 – October 29, 1957) was a Canadian-American film producer and co-founder of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios (MGM) in 1924. Under Mayer's management, MGM became the film industry's most prestigious movie studio, accumulating the largest concentration of leading writers, directors, and stars in Hollywood. Mayer was born in either Minsk or Dymer, then both part of the Russian Empire and grew up poor in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada. He quit school at 12 to support his family and later moved to Boston and purchased and renovated a small vaudeville theatre in Haverhill, Massachusetts. He renovated and expanded several other theatres in the Boston area catering to audiences of higher social classes. After expanding and moving to Los Angeles, he teamed with film producer Irving Thalberg and they developed hundreds of films. Mayer handled the business of running the studio, such as setting budgets and approving new productions, while Thalberg, still in his twenties, supervised all MGM productions. Mayer claimed to believe in "wholesome entertainment" and went to great lengths to discover new actors and develop them into major stars. During his long reign at MGM, Mayer acquired many critics and supporters. Some stars did not appreciate his attempts to control their private lives, while others saw him as a concerned father figure. He was controversial for his treatment of the actors under his management, such as in the case of Judy Garland, whom he forced to go on diets, take drugs, and work punishing schedules. Mayer was forced to resign as MGM's vice president in 1951, when the studio's parent company, Loew's, Inc., wanted to improve declining profits. A staunch conservative, Mayer at one time was the chairman of the California Republican Party. In 1927, he was one of the founders of AMPAS, famous for its annual Academy Awards.

Amelia Mary Earhart was an American aviator and aviation pioneer who became one of the most celebrated figures of early flight.

World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated, with many engaging in total war on an unprecedented scale. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the deaths of 60 to 75 million people, a majority of whom were civilians. Millions died as a result of massacres, starvation, disease, and genocides including the Holocaust. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.

Tarakan is an island and co-extensively the sole city within the Indonesian province of North Kalimantan. The island city is the largest urban area in North Kalimantan population-wise and is located in northern Borneo, midway along the coast of the province. The city boundaries are co-extensive with the island. Once a major oil-producing region during the colonial period, Tarakan had great strategic importance during the Pacific War and was among the first Japanese targets early in the conflict. It is the sole city within the Indonesian province of North Kalimantan. According to Statistics Indonesia, the city had a population of 193,370 at the 2010 Census and 242,786 inhabitants at the 2020 Census; the official estimate as at mid 2024 was 255,310.

The Republic of China established its governance over mainland China on 1 January 1912 following the Xinhai Revolution, which overthrew the Manchu-led Qing dynasty and ended China's imperial history. The Beiyang government in Beijing was the internationally recognized government of the ROC from 1912 to 1928, with regional warlords occupying parts of the country after the death of Beiyang leader Yuan Shikai in 1916. In 1926, the Kuomintang (KMT) launched the Northern Expedition, which eventually reunified the country in 1928. The KMT established the Nationalist government and governed the ROC as a one-party state with Nanjing as the capital. In 1949, the KMT was defeated in the Chinese Civil War by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the ROC government retreated to Taiwan, where it remains to this date. The ROC is recorded as a founding member of both the League of Nations and the United Nations. It claimed 11.4 million km2 (4.4 million sq mi) of territory, and its population of 541 million in 1949 made it the most populous country in the world.

Carlo Tresca (March 9, 1879 – January 11, 1943) was an Italian-American dissident, newspaper editor, orator, and labor organizer and activist who was a leader of the Industrial Workers of the World during the 1910s. He is remembered as a leading public opponent of fascism, Stalinism, and Mafia infiltration of the trade unions for the purposes of labor racketeering and corruption. Born, raised, and educated in Italy, Tresca was editor of an Italian socialist newspaper and secretary of the Italian Federation of Railroad Workers before he emigrated to the United States in 1904. After a three-year spell as secretary of the Italian Socialist Federation of North America, he joined the Industrial Workers of the World in 1912, and was involved in strikes across the United States over the rest of the decade. He was jailed in 1925 after printing a paid advertisement for a birth control pamphlet in one of his newspapers. During the 1930s, Tresca was a vocal critic of the Italian Fascist government of Benito Mussolini and the Soviet Communist government of Joseph Stalin. In 1937, he was a member of the Dewey Commission, which cleared Leon Trotsky of all charges made during the Moscow Trials. Tresca also used his newspapers to mount a public campaign criticising the Mafia. He was assassinated in New York in January 1943, allegedly by Carmine Galante.

Enver Halil Hoxha (16 October 1908 – 11 April 1985) was an Albanian politician, revolutionary, and communist political theorist who was the leader of Albania from 1944 until his death in 1985. He served as the First Secretary of the Party of Labour of Albania from 1941 until his death, while concurrently holding membership in its Politburo, chairman of the Democratic Front of Albania, and commander-in-chief of the Albanian People's Army. Additionally, he was the twenty-second Prime Minister of Albania from 1944 to 1954, periodically assuming the titles of foreign minister and defence minister. Hoxha was born in Gjirokastër (then part of the Ottoman Empire) in 1908. After the Italian invasion of Albania, he helped unify the fractured Albanian communist movement into the Communist Party of Albania. He was elected First Secretary in March 1943 at the age of 34. Less than two years after the liberation of the country, the monarchy of King Zog I was formally abolished, and Hoxha became the country's de facto head of state. In 1966, he spearheaded the Cultural and Ideological Revolution, a campaign that, among other things, wished to eliminate the influence of religion on Albanian society. During his time as First Secretary, Albania saw many breakthroughs in standard of living, industry, and social development; however, over the same period he implemented a program of state atheism and ordered the anti-religious persecution of Muslims and Christians. His government outlawed traveling abroad and private proprietorship. The government imprisoned, executed, or exiled thousands of landowners, rural clan leaders, peasants who resisted collectivization, and allegedly disloyal party officials. Hoxha was succeeded by Ramiz Alia, who was in charge during the fall of communism in Albania. Hoxha's government was characterised by a strict adherence to an anti-revisionist form of Marxism–Leninism, particularly from the mid-to-late 1960s onwards. Following the Sino-Albanian Split between 1976 and 1978, the Party of Labour of Albania formally severed ties with the Chinese Communist Party, and Hoxha declared that the nation would pursue the construction of communism independently. This ideological stance led to numerous parties around the world to declare themselves Hoxhaist. The International Conference of Marxist–Leninist Parties and Organisations (Unity & Struggle) is the best known association of these parties.

KDKA-TV (channel 2), branded as CBS Pittsburgh, is a television station in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. It is owned and operated by the CBS television network through its CBS News and Stations division, and is sister to WPKD-TV (channel 19), an independent station. The two outlets share studios at the Gateway Center in Downtown Pittsburgh; KDKA-TV's transmitter is located in the city's Perry North neighborhood.

Lufthansa Flight 502 was a scheduled flight from Hamburg, Germany to Buenos Aires, Argentina on 11 January 1959. The flight was being operated by a Lockheed L-1049G Super Constellation. On the leg between Senegal and Brazil the Super Constellation was on approach to Rio de Janeiro–Galeão International Airport when it crashed near Flecheiras Beach just short of the runway. All 29 passengers and seven of the ten crew were killed. It was the first fatal accident involving the current Lufthansa since it was formed in 1955.

The Throgs Neck Bridge is a suspension bridge in New York City, carrying six lanes of Interstate 295 (I-295) over the East River where it meets the Long Island Sound. The bridge connects the Throggs Neck section of the Bronx with the Bay Terrace section of Queens.

The Cold War was a period of international geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc. It began in the aftermath of the Second World War and ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The term cold war is used because there was no direct fighting between the two superpowers, though each supported opposing sides in regional conflicts known as proxy wars. In addition to the struggle for ideological and economic influence and an arms race in both conventional and nuclear weapons, the Cold War was expressed through technological rivalries such as the Space Race, espionage, propaganda campaigns, embargoes, and sports diplomacy.

Huascarán, Nevado Huascarán or Mataraju is a mountain located in Yungay Province, Ancash Department, Peru. It is situated in the Cordillera Blanca range of the western Andes. The southern summit of Huascarán, which reaches 6,768 metres (22,205 ft), is the highest point in Peru, the northern Andes, and in all of the Earth's tropics. It is the fourth highest mountain in South America after Aconcagua, Ojos del Salado, and Monte Pissis. Huascarán is ranked 25th by topographic isolation.

The Tbilisi Metro is a rapid transit system in the Georgian capital Tbilisi. Opened on 11 January 1966, it was the fourth metro system in the former Soviet Union. Like other Soviet-built metros, most of the stations are very deep and vividly decorated.

East Pakistan was the eastern province of Pakistan between 1956 and 1971, restructured and renamed from the province of East Bengal and covering the territory of the modern country of Bangladesh. Its land borders were with India and Burma, with a coastline on the Bay of Bengal. To distinguish this region from India's state West Bengal, East Pakistan was known as "Pakistani Bengal". East Pakistanis were popularly known as "Pakistani Bengalis". In 1971, East Pakistan became the newly independent state Bangladesh, which means "country of Bengal" or "country of Bengalis" or "land of Bengalis" in the Bengali language.

Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league in North America composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada and is considered the premier baseball league in the world. Each team plays 162 games per season, with Opening Day held during the last week of March or the first week of April. Six teams in each league then advance to a four-round postseason tournament in October, culminating in the World Series, a best-of-seven championship series between the two league champions first played in 1903. MLB is headquartered in New York City.

Pikku Kakkonen is an ongoing Finnish magazine-type children's TV show shown on Yle TV2. The first episode aired on 11 January 1977. It finished with a bedtime story read by the late Lasse Pöysti (1927–2019) and an East German Sandman animation, setting the format for hundreds of later episodes. Currently the series airs twice a day on weekdays and once a day on weekends.

United Airlines Flight 2885 was a scheduled cargo flight from Cleveland to Los Angeles, with stopover in Detroit. On January 11, 1983, a DC-8 operating as Flight 2885 crashed after take-off from Detroit, killing all three crew members. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigation determined that the cause for the crash was pilot error. A radioactive package was found on board, but no radioactive material was spilled.

The Sir Leo Hielscher Bridges, formerly and still collectively referred to as the Gateway Bridge, are a pair of twin road bridges that carry the Gateway Motorway (M1) over the Brisbane River, skirting the eastern suburbs of the city of Brisbane. The western bridge carries traffic to the north and the eastern bridge carries traffic to the south. They are the most eastern crossings of the Brisbane River and the closest to Moreton Bay, crossing at the Quarries Reach and linking the suburbs of Eagle Farm and Murarrie. The original western bridge was opened on 11 January 1986 and cost A$92 million to build. The duplicate bridge was opened on 22 May 2010, and cost $350 million.

Ireland, also known as the Republic of Ireland, is a country in Northwestern Europe. It consists of 26 of the 32 counties of the island of Ireland, with a population of about 5.4 million. Its capital and largest city is Dublin, on the eastern side of the island, with a population of over 1.5 million. The sovereign state shares its only land border with Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom. It is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the Celtic Sea to the south, St George's Channel to the south-east and the Irish Sea to the east. It is a unitary, parliamentary republic. The legislature, the Oireachtas, consists of a lower house, Dáil Éireann; an upper house, Seanad Éireann; and an elected president who serves as the largely ceremonial head of state, but with some important powers and duties. The head of government is the Taoiseach, elected by the Dáil and appointed by the president, who appoints other government ministers.

Intercontinental de Aviación Flight 256 was a scheduled flight from El Dorado International Airport, Bogotá, on a service to Rafael Núñez International Airport, Cartagena, and San Andrés. On 11 January 1995, the McDonnell Douglas DC-9-14 operating the flight flew into the ground during its approach to Cartagena Airport, killing all but one of the 52 people on board. The sole survivor was a nine-year old girl who sustained minor injuries.

The Space Shuttle program was the fourth human spaceflight program carried out by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which accomplished routine transportation for Earth-to-orbit crew and cargo from 1981 to 2011. Its official program name was carried over from the 1969 plan for the Space Transportation System (STS) of reusable spacecraft. Only the shuttle and supporting rockets were funded for development; a proposed nuclear lunar shuttle in the plan was canceled in 1972. It flew 135 missions and carried 355 astronauts from 16 countries, many on multiple trips.

The governor of Illinois is the head of government of Illinois, and the various agencies and departments over which the officer has jurisdiction, as prescribed in the state constitution. It is a directly elected position, votes being cast by popular suffrage of residents of the state. The governor is responsible for endorsing or vetoing laws passed by the Illinois General Assembly. The office also carries the power of pardon and commutation under state law. The governor is commander-in-chief of the state's land, air and sea forces when they are in state service. Illinois is one of 13 states that does not place a term limit for governor.

On 11 January 2013, the French military launched an unsuccessful operation in Bulo Marer, Lower Shabelle, Somalia to rescue French hostage Denis Allex from the Islamic militant organization al-Shabaab. Allex was executed in response, and two French commandos, at least 17 al-Shabaab militants and at least eight civilians were killed in the firefight.