March 11 in History

The Feast of Orthodoxy (or Sunday of Orthodoxy or Triumph of Orthodoxy) is celebrated on the first Sunday of Great Lent in the Eastern Orthodox Church and other churches using the Byzantine Rite to commemorate, originally, only the final defeat of iconoclasm on the first Sunday of Lent in 843, and later also opposition to all heterodoxy.

Arnošt of Pardubice (Czech: Arnošt z Pardubic, German: Ernst von Pardubitz; 25 March 1297 – 30 June 1364) was the first Archbishop of Prague (and the last bishop). He was also an advisor and diplomat to Emperor Charles IV.

The Battle of Castagnaro was fought on 11 March 1387 at Castagnaro (today's Veneto, northern Italy) between Verona and Padua. It is one of the most famous battles of the Italian condottieri age. The army of Verona was led by Giovanni Ordelaffi and Ostasio II da Polenta, while the victorious Paduans were commanded by John Hawkwood (Giovanni Acuto) and Francesco Novello da Carrara, the son of Francesco I, lord of Padua. John Hawkwood brought 1,100 of his own condottiere (600 cavalry and 500 archers, or vice versa depending on the source) to supplement the Paduan forces of 8,000 men (Giuseppe Marcotti places the number of dismounted condottiere at 6,000 men, along with a reserve of 1,600 horse. He also goes on to say that there were 1,000 native footmen of Padua, and 600 crossbowmen guarding a river bank.) Castagnaro is hailed as Sir John Hawkwood's greatest victory. Following a Fabian-like strategy, Hawkwood goaded the Veronese into attacking him on a field of his own choosing, by laying waste to the Veronese lands nearby. Drawing his forces up on the far side of a canal, and anchoring his right flank on a patch of woods, Hawkwood waited until the Veronese had committed to attacking across a ford of fascines piled up in the canal. Once so occupied, Hawkwood sprang his trap. Hawkwood had left a copy of his standard behind his forces, then had led his cavalry into the woods to his right. At a given signal — supposedly, a flaming arrow — the copy of his standard dropped, and Hawkwood's cavalry burst from the woods on the Veronese left, with his real standard in front. At the point of impact, Hawkwood is said to have cast his commander's baton into the Veronese ranks and ordered his men to retrieve it for him. Per Trease, it is said that Hawkwood's battle cry that day was a grim play on the Paduan war-cry of Carro! ("Cart!", from the coat of arms of the House of Da Carrara) — in Hawkwood's rendition, it became Carne! ("Flesh!"). The Veronese tried to intervene with their reserve of 2,500 cavalry commanded by Captain General Giovanni degli Ordelaffi and Ostasio da Polenta. However, the road was blocked by Hawkwood's forces, and Giovanni degli Ordelaffi and Ostasio da Polenta were captured; 1,900 of the cavalry fled, but were pursued and many were captured. The corps of infantry and Veronese peasants commanded by Giovanni da Isola remained intact on the battlefield, but was destroyed after it refused to surrender.

The Guarani are a group of culturally-related indigenous peoples of South America. They are distinguished from the related Tupi by their use of the Guarani language. The traditional range of the Guarani people is in what is now Paraguay between the Paraná River and lower Paraguay River, the Misiones Province of Argentina, southern Brazil once as far east as Rio de Janeiro, and parts of Uruguay and Bolivia.

The Fronde was a civil war fought in France between 1648 and 1653. The term comes from the French noun for slingshot, and was originally a derogatory term for the rebels.

The Daily Courant, initially published on [O.S. 11 March] 1702, was the first British daily newspaper. It was produced by Elizabeth Mallet at her premises next to the King's Arms tavern at Fleet Bridge in London. The newspaper consisted of a single page, with advertisements on the reverse side. Mallet advertised that she intended to publish only foreign news and would not add any comments of her own, supposing her readers to have "sense enough to make reflections for themselves". After only forty days Mallet sold The Daily Courant to Samuel Buckley, who moved it to premises in the area of Little Britain in London, at "the sign of the Dolphin". Buckley later became the publisher of The Spectator. The Daily Courant lasted until 1735, when it was merged with the Daily Gazetteer.

Anne was Queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 8 March 1702, and Queen of Great Britain and Ireland following the ratification of the Acts of Union 1707 merging the kingdoms of England and Scotland, until her death in 1714.

The Battle of Kharda also called the Battle of Khurla, took place in 1795 between the Nizam of Hyderabad and the Maratha Empire, in which the Nizam was defeated.

The Flagstaff War, also known as Heke's War, Hōne Heke's Rebellion and the Northern War, was fought between 11 March 1845 and 11 January 1846 in and around the Bay of Islands, New Zealand. The conflict is best remembered for the actions of Hōne Heke who challenged the authority of the British by cutting down the flagstaff on Flagstaff Hill (Maiki Hill) at Kororāreka (now Russell). The flagstaff had been a gift from Hōne Heke to James Busby, the first British Resident. The Northern War involved many major actions, including the Battle of Kororāreka on 11 March 1845, the Battle of Puketutu on 8 May 1845, the Battle of Ōhaeawai on 23 June 1845 and the siege of Ruapekapeka Pā from 27 December 1845 to 11 January 1846. The conflict is seen as one of the first of the New Zealand Wars.

Sir Louis-Hippolyte Ménard dit La Fontaine, 1st Baronet, KCMG was a Canadian politician, jurist and statesman, who served as the first Premier of the United Province of Canada and the first head of a responsible government in Canada along side Robert Baldwin.

Rigoletto is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the 1832 play Le roi s'amuse by Victor Hugo. Despite serious initial problems with the Austrian censors who had control over northern Italian theatres at the time, the opera had a triumphant premiere at La Fenice in Venice on 11 March 1851. The work, Verdi's sixteenth in the genre, is widely considered to be the first of the operatic masterpieces of Verdi's middle-to-late career. Its tragic story revolves around the licentious Duke of Mantua, his hunch-backed court jester Rigoletto, and Rigoletto's daughter Gilda. The opera's original title, La maledizione (The Curse), refers to a curse placed on both the Duke and Rigoletto by the Count Monterone, whose daughter the Duke has seduced with Rigoletto's encouragement. The curse comes to fruition when Gilda falls in love with the Duke and sacrifices her life to save him from the assassin hired by her father.

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 Great Sheffield Flood was a flood that devastated parts of Sheffield, England, on 11 March 1864, when the Dale Dyke Dam broke as its reservoir was being filled for the first time. At least 240 people died and more than 600 houses were damaged or destroyed by the flood. The immediate cause was a crack in the embankment, the cause of which was never determined. The dam's failure led to reforms in engineering practice, setting standards on specifics that needed to be met when constructing such large-scale structures. The dam was rebuilt in 1875.

Seven Sisters (Welsh: Blaendulais: source of the (river) Dulais) is a village and community in the Dulais Valley, Wales, UK. It lies 10 miles (16 km) north-east of Neath. Seven Sisters falls within the Seven Sisters ward of Neath Port Talbot county borough.

Shō Tai (尚 泰; 3 August 1843 – 19 August 1901) was the final King of Ryukyu, initially as hereditary king of the Ryukyu Kingdom from 8 June 1848 until 10 October 1872 and finally as the Japanese appointed Domain King by Emperor Meiji, ultimately leading to his deposition and relocation to Tokyo by the Meiji Government on 11 March 1879. In May 1885, in compensation, he was made a Kōshaku (侯爵, marquess), the second tier of nobility in the kazoku peerage system. This entitled him to a hereditary seat in the House of Peers as well as a stipend from the government. Overall, his reign saw the eradication of the dual-loyalty system of the supposedly independent Ryukyuan kingdom in favour of the Japanese rather than that of the Qing dynasty or the Satsuma Domain specifically, and the annexation of Ryukyu into Okinawa Prefecture. His time as sovereign featured greatly increased interactions with travelers from abroad, particularly from Europe and the United States. The descendants of Shō continue to press their claim as the legitimate rulers of Okinawa.

The Great Blizzard of 1888, also known as the Great Blizzard of '88 or the Great White Hurricane (March 11–14, 1888), was one of the most severe recorded blizzards and deadliest blizzard in American history. The storm paralyzed the East Coast from the Chesapeake Bay to Maine, as well as the Atlantic provinces of Canada. Snow from 10 to 58 inches (25 to 150 cm) fell in parts of New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, and sustained winds of more than 45 miles per hour (72 km/h; 39 kn) produced snowdrifts in excess of 50 feet (15 m). Railroads were shut down and people were confined to their homes for up to a week. Railway and telegraph lines were disabled, and this provided the impetus to move these pieces of infrastructure underground. Emergency services were also affected during this blizzard.

The Saint-Germain bombing was a bomb attack carried out on 11 March 1892, in Paris by Ravachol and some members of his group, although the specific involvement of others is debated, including Gustave Mathieu, Rosalie Soubère, Joseph Jas-Béala, Charles Simon, and Charles Chaumentin and Clotilde Mabillon. The attack was an act of vengeance against Edmond Benoît, the judge presiding over the trial of the accused in the Clichy affair, where three anarchist demonstrators were arrested by the police, beaten with sabers, deprived of care and water for some time, and judged very harshly by Benoît. After receiving a significant shipment of stolen dynamite, Simon and Ravachol built the bomb together before some members set out for the judge's residence. Soubère carried the bomb under her skirts before handing it to Ravachol, who placed it. It exploded but failed to kill its target, causing no deaths and one injury. The operation was a strategic failure: the conspirators missed their target, the police were searching for them, and although they failed to prevent the Clichy bombing on 27 March 1892, where the group attempted to assassinate the prosecutor in the case, Simon was arrested after being denounced by an informant. After the second attack, Ravachol, Jas-Béala, and Soubère were quickly captured and put on trial. Ravachol, whose legal strategy was to take full responsibility for the attack to exonerate his companions, was sentenced to life imprisonment and later to death. Soubère and Jas-Béala were acquitted, while Simon was sentenced to life imprisonment and deported to Cayenne. Meanwhile, Mathieu managed to escape the French authorities going underground. Despite this, the attack was a significant tactical success, as it marked the beginning of the Ère des attentats (1892–1894), a violent confrontation between the French state and anarchists. The attack inspired other anarchist militants such as Auguste Vaillant, Émile Henry or Amédée Pauwels. In this context, terrorism underwent significant transformations. Although the Saint-Germain bombing was still based on the traditional form of terrorism, 'tyrannicide', figures inspired by it, such as Émile Henry, used it as a model to develop indiscriminate or mass terrorism, a significant form of terrorism in the 20th and 21st centuries. For his defiance towards death and complete dedication to his ideals, Ravachol, in particular, became a mythical figure among anarchist circles, especially among French illegalists, where he was seen as a martyr for the anarchist cause.

World War I, or the First World War, also known as the Great War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Central Powers. One of the deadliest conflicts in history, World War I resulted in an estimated 15 to 22 million deaths, including those in war crimes and genocides. The war also helped spread the Spanish flu pandemic. The conflict saw important developments in weaponry, including the first large-scale use of machine guns, artillery, aircraft, chemical weapons, and tanks.

Samuel Lionel "Roxy" Rothafel (July 9, 1882 – January 13, 1936) was an American theatrical impresario and entrepreneur. He is noted for developing the lavish presentation of silent films in the deluxe movie palace theaters of the 1910s and 1920s.

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.

The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1871 to 1945, when it was dissolved following Japan's surrender in World War II. The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) was formed between 1952 and 1954 after the dissolution of the IJN. The IJN was the third largest navy in the world by 1920, behind the Royal Navy and the United States Navy (USN). It was supported by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service for reconnaissance and airstrike operations from the fleet. It was the primary opponent of the Western Allies in the Pacific War. The IJN additionally fielded limited land-based forces, including professional marines, marine paratrooper units, anti-aircraft defense units, installation and port security units, naval police units, and ad-hoc formations of sailors pressed into service as naval infantry. The origins of the IJN date back to early interactions with nations on the Asian continent, beginning in the early feudal period and reaching a peak of activity during the 16th and 17th centuries at a time of cultural exchange with European powers during the Age of Discovery. After two centuries of stagnation during the country's ensuing seclusion policy under the shōgun of the Edo period, Japan's navy was comparatively antiquated when the country was forced open to trade by American intervention in 1854. This eventually led to the Meiji Restoration. Accompanying the re-ascendance of the Emperor came a period of frantic modernization and industrialization. The IJN saw several successes in combat during the early twentieth century, sometimes against much more powerful enemies, such as in the Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War, before being largely destroyed in World War II.

The Empire of Vietnam was a short-lived sponsored state of Imperial Japan between March 11 and August 30, 1945. It was a member of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere and was ruled by the Nguyễn dynasty. The Empire was proclaimed when Emperor Bảo Đại declared independence for Vietnam (Tonkin and Annam) from French protection. At the end of its existence, on 14 August 1945, the empire also successfully reclaimed Cochinchina as part of Vietnam.

Rudolf Franz Ferdinand Höss (also Höß, Hoeß, or Hoess; German: [hœs]; 25 November 1901 – 16 April 1947) was a German SS officer, the commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp, and a war criminal. After the defeat of Nazi Germany and the end of World War II, he lived under a false name until discovered by the British, who then turned him over to Polish authorities. Höss was convicted in Poland and executed for war crimes committed on the prisoners of the Auschwitz concentration camp and for his role in the Holocaust. Höss was the longest-serving commandant of Auschwitz Concentration Camp (from 4 May 1940 to November 1943, and again from 8 May 1944 to 18 January 1945). He tested and implemented means to accelerate the systematic extermination of the Jewish population of Nazi-occupied Europe, known as the Final Solution. On the initiative of one of his subordinates, Karl Fritzsch, Höss introduced the pesticide Zyklon B to be used in gas chambers, where over a million people were killed. Höss was hanged in 1947 following a trial before the Polish Supreme National Tribunal. During his imprisonment, at the request of the Polish authorities who gave the aura of lenient treatment, Höss wrote his memoirs, released in English under the title Commandant of Auschwitz: The Autobiography of Rudolf Hoess. which helped to identify further war criminals involved in Auschwitz, prior to his execution. The Polish authorities built a makeshift gallows in Auschwitz to execute Rudolf Höss, to symbolically signify he was always going to be the last person to die at the camp. Until 1990/2026, a photo of the executed Rudolf Höss accompanied every Polish Second World War textbook in schools, making his face a memorable affixation to that period of history.

The 1977 Hanafi Siege was a terrorist attack, hostage-taking, and standoff in Washington, D.C., lasting from March 9 to March 11, 1977. Three buildings (the District Building, B'nai B'rith headquarters, and Islamic Center of Washington) were seized by twelve Hanafi Movement gunmen, who took 149 hostages. During the initial attack and takeover of the buildings, the assailants killed a journalist and mortally wounded a police officer; three others, including a city councilor, were injured. After a 39-hour standoff, the gunmen surrendered and all remaining hostages were released. The gunmen were led by Hamaas Abdul Khaalis, who wanted to bring attention to the murder of his family in 1973. They had several demands, including that the government hand over the killers of Khaalis' family and Malcolm X to them, as well as that the premiere of Mohammad, Messenger of God be canceled, and the film destroyed, because they considered it sacrilegious. Time magazine noted: That the toll was not higher was in part a tribute to the primary tactic U.S. law enforcement officials are now using to thwart terrorists—patience. But most of all, perhaps, it was due to the courageous intervention of three Muslim ambassadors, Egypt's Ashraf Ghorbal, Pakistan's Sahabzada Yaqub-Khan and Iran's Ardeshir Zahedi.

The coastal road massacre occurred on 11 March 1978, when Palestinian militants hijacked a bus on the Coastal Highway of Israel and murdered its occupants; 38 Israeli civilians, including 13 children, were killed as a result of the attack while 76 more were wounded. The attack was planned by the influential Palestinian militant leader Khalil al-Wazir (aka Abu Jihad) and carried out by Fatah, a Palestinian nationalist party co-founded by al-Wazir and Yasser Arafat in 1959. The initial plan of the militants was to seize a luxury hotel in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv and take tourists and foreign ambassadors hostage to exchange them for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli custody. According to Time magazine, the timing was aimed primarily at undermining Israeli–Egyptian peace talks between Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat and damaging Israel's tourism sector. However, due to a navigational error, the attackers ended up 64 kilometres (40 mi) north of their target, and were forced to find an alternative method of transportation to their destination. Until the Nova music festival massacre which occurred in 2023, it was the deadliest terrorist attack in the history of Israel. Time characterized it as "the worst terrorist attack in Israel's history." Fatah dubbed the hijacking "Operation of the Martyr Kamal Adwan" after the chief of operations of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), who was killed during the Israeli commando raid on Lebanon in April 1973. In response to the massacre, Israel launched Operation Litani against PLO bases in southern Lebanon three days later.

Kosovo, officially the Republic of Kosovo, is a landlocked country in Southeastern Europe with partial diplomatic recognition. It is bordered by Albania to the southwest, Montenegro to the west, Serbia to the north and east, and North Macedonia to the southeast. It covers an area of 10,887 km2 (4,203 sq mi) and has a population of nearly 1.6 million, of whom the vast majority are ethnic Albanians. Kosovo has a varied terrain, with high plains along with rolling hills and mountains, some of which have an altitude over 2,500 m (8,200 ft). Its climate is mainly continental with some Mediterranean and Alpine influences. Kosovo's capital and most populous city is Pristina; other major cities and urban areas include Prizren, Ferizaj, Gjilan, and Peja.

Widerøe Flight 933, also known as the Mehamn Accident (Norwegian: Mehamn-ulykken), was the crash of a de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter operated by Norwegian airline Widerøe. The Twin Otter crashed into the Barents Sea off Gamvik, Norway on 11 March 1982 at 13:27, killing all 15 people on board. The results of the four official investigations were that the accident was caused by structural failure of the vertical stabilizer during clear-air turbulence. A mechanical fault in the elevator control system caused the pilots to lose control of pitch; and either a series of stalls or a high-speed gust of wind caused the aircraft to lose altitude without the ability of the crew to counteract, resulting in the failure of the vertical stabilizer. The accident occurred during a NATO military exercise, within a self-declared no-fly zone for allied military aircraft. An extensive search and rescue operation was carried out and the submerged wreck was found on 13 March. The aircraft and all but one of the deceased were retrieved. An official investigation was concluded on 20 July 1984. A conspiracy theory later emerged after the accident investigation was concluded, claiming that the accident was caused by a mid-air collision with a Harrier jump jet of the British Royal Air Force. The theory is based on reports which emerged years or decades after the accident. The claims and renewed press interest resulted in three additional investigations, established in 1987, 1997, and 2002. All four investigations came to the same general conclusions and rejected a collision.

Robert James Lee Hawke (9 December 1929 – 16 May 2019) was the 23rd prime minister of Australia, serving from 1983 to 1991. He held office as leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP), having previously served as president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions from 1969 to 1980 and as president of the Labor Party national executive from 1973 to 1978. Hawke was born in Border Town, South Australia. He attended the University of Western Australia and went on to study at University College, Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. In 1956, Hawke joined the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) as a research officer. Having risen to become responsible for national wage case arbitration, he was elected as president of the ACTU in 1969, where he achieved a high public profile. In 1973, he was appointed as president of the Labor Party. In 1980, Hawke stood down from his roles as ACTU and Labor Party president to announce his intention to enter parliamentary politics, and was subsequently elected to the Australian House of Representatives as a member of parliament (MP) for the division of Wills at the 1980 federal election. Three years later, he was elected unopposed to replace Bill Hayden as leader of the Australian Labor Party, and within five weeks led Labor to a landslide victory at the 1983 election, and was sworn in as prime minister. He led Labor to victory a further three times, with successful outcomes in 1984, 1987 and 1990 elections, making him the most electorally successful prime minister in the history of the Labor Party. The Hawke government oversaw one of the largest overhauls of Australia's political economy in its history. A defining feature of the Hawke term was the close co-operation between business, the government and trade unions via conferences such as the national economic summit, the tax summit and the accord. Key reforms implemented by the Hawke government included widespread deregulation, dramatic cuts to tariffs as well as business subsidies, the introduction of universal healthcare under Medicare, increased federal expenditure on education, creating APEC, floating the Australian dollar, enacting the Sex Discrimination Act to prevent discrimination in the workplace, declaring "Advance Australia Fair" as the country's national anthem, initiating superannuation pension schemes for all workers, negotiating a ban on mining in Antarctica and overseeing passage of the Australia Act that removed all remaining jurisdiction by the United Kingdom from Australia. Instead of supporting the public ownership of government industries, the Hawke government sought to redistribute money from the wealthy to the poor via direct fiscal transfers and training programs to help people find employment. Measures implemented by the Hawke government towards this end included the creation of programs such as Newstart, commonwealth rent assistance and the Family Tax Benefit as well as increased progressiveness in taxation. The Hawke government privatised state-owned enterprises such as Qantas. In June 1991, Hawke faced a leadership challenge by the Treasurer, Paul Keating, but Hawke managed to retain power; however, Keating mounted a second challenge six months later, and won narrowly, replacing Hawke as prime minister. Hawke subsequently retired from parliament, pursuing both a business career and a number of charitable causes, until his death in 2019, aged 89. Hawke remains his party's longest-serving prime minister, and Australia's third-longest-serving prime minister behind Robert Menzies and John Howard. He is also the only prime minister to be born in South Australia and the only one raised and educated in Western Australia. Hawke holds the highest-ever approval rating for an Australian prime minister, reaching 75% approval in 1984. Hawke is frequently ranked within the upper tier of Australian prime ministers by historians.

Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet and Russian politician who was the last leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 until the country's dissolution in 1991. He served as General Secretary of the Communist Party from 1985, and additionally as head of state from 1988. Ideologically, he initially adhered to Marxism–Leninism, but moved towards social democracy by the early 1990s. Born in Privolnoye, North Caucasus Krai, into a peasant family of Russian and Ukrainian heritage, Gorbachev grew up under the rule of Joseph Stalin. In his youth, Gorbachev operated combine harvesters on a collective farm, before joining the Communist Party, which then governed the Soviet Union as a one-party state. Studying at Moscow State University, he married fellow student Raisa Titarenko in 1953 and received his law degree in 1955. Moving to Stavropol, he worked for the Komsomol youth organization and, after Stalin's death, became a keen proponent of the de-Stalinization reforms of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. Gorbachev was appointed the first party secretary of the Stavropol Regional Committee in 1970, overseeing the construction of the Great Stavropol Canal. In 1978, Gorbachev returned to Moscow to become a secretary of the party's Central Committee. He joined the governing Politburo (25th term) as a non-voting member the following year and as a voting member in 1980. Three years after the death of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, and following the brief tenures of Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko in 1985, the Politburo elected Gorbachev as general secretary. Although committed to preserving the Soviet state and its Marxist–Leninist principles, Gorbachev believed significant reform was necessary for its survival. He withdrew troops from the Soviet–Afghan War, and embarked on summits with United States president Ronald Reagan to limit nuclear weapons and end the Cold War. Domestically, Gorbachev's policy of glasnost ("openness") and demokratizatsiya ("democratization") allowed for enhanced freedom of speech and the press, while his perestroika ("restructuring") sought to decentralize economic decision-making to improve its efficiency. Ultimately, his democratization measures and formation of the elected Congress of People's Deputies undermined the one-party state. When various Warsaw Pact countries abandoned Marxist–Leninist governance in 1989, he declined to intervene militarily. Growing nationalist sentiment within constituent republics threatened to break up the Soviet Union, leading hardliners within the party to launch an unsuccessful coup against him in August 1991. In the wake of the coup, the Soviet Union dissolved against Gorbachev's wishes. After resigning from the presidency, he launched the Gorbachev Foundation, became a vocal critic of Russian presidents Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin, and campaigned for Russia's social-democratic movement. Considered one of the most significant figures of the second half of the 20th century, Gorbachev remains controversial. The recipient of a wide range of awards, including the Nobel Peace Prize, he was praised for his role in ending the Cold War, introducing new political and economic freedoms in the Soviet Union, and tolerating both the fall of Marxist–Leninist administrations in eastern and central Europe and the German reunification. Critics see him as weakening Russia's global influence and precipitating an economic collapse in the country.

The Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania or Act of 11 March was an independence declaration by Lithuania adopted on 11 March 1990, signed by all members of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Lithuania led by Sąjūdis. The act emphasized restoration and legal continuity of the interwar-period Lithuania, which was occupied by the Soviet Union and annexed in June 1940. In March 1990, it was the first of the 15 Soviet republics to declare independence, with the rest following to continue for 21 months, concluding with Kazakhstan's independence in 1991. These events led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is an intergovernmental organisation and international tribunal seated in The Hague, Netherlands. Established in 2002 under the multilateral Rome Statute, the ICC is the first and only permanent international court with jurisdiction to prosecute individuals for the international crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression. The ICC is intended to complement, not replace, national judicial systems; it can exercise its jurisdiction only when national courts are unwilling or unable to prosecute criminals. It is distinct from the International Court of Justice, an organ of the United Nations that hears disputes between states.

The 2004 Madrid train bombings were a series of coordinated, nearly simultaneous bombings against the Cercanías commuter train system of Madrid, Spain, on the morning of 11 March 2004—three days before Spain's general elections. The explosions killed 193 people and injured around 2,500. The bombings constituted the deadliest terrorist attack carried out in the history of Spain and the deadliest in Europe since the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in Scotland. The attacks were carried out by radical Islamists who opposed Spanish indirect involvement in the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.

Verónica Michelle Bachelet Jeria is a Chilean physician and politician who served as President of Chile from 2006 to 2010 and again from 2014 to 2018. A member of the Socialist Party, she was the first woman to be elected president of Chile and the first woman to serve as Chile's minister of health and minister of national defense.

Space Shuttle Endeavour is a retired orbiter from NASA's Space Shuttle program and the fifth and final operational Shuttle built. It embarked on its first mission, STS-49, in May 1992 and its 25th and final mission, STS-134, in May 2011. STS-134 was expected to be the final mission of the Space Shuttle program, but with the authorization of STS-135 by the United States Congress, Atlantis became the last shuttle to fly.

The Winnenden school shooting occurred on the morning of 11 March 2009 at the Albertville-Realschule, a real school in Winnenden, a town in the Rems-Murr district of Baden-Württemberg in southwestern Germany, followed by a shootout at a car dealership in nearby Wendlingen. The shooting spree resulted in 16 deaths, including the suicide of the perpetrator, 17-year-old Tim Kretschmer, who had graduated from the school a year earlier. Another nine people were injured during the incident.

Miguel Juan Sebastián Piñera Echenique was a Chilean businessman and politician who served as 34th and 36th president of Chile from 2010 to 2014 and from 2018 to 2022. The son of a Christian Democratic politician and diplomat, he studied business administration at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and economics at Harvard University. At the time of his death, he had an estimated net worth of US$2.7 billion, according to Forbes, making him the third richest person in Chile.

On 11 March 2011, at 14:46:24 local time (UTC+9), a Mw 9.0–9.1 undersea megathrust earthquake occurred in the Pacific Ocean, 72 km (45 mi) east of the Oshika Peninsula of the Tōhoku region of Japan. It lasted approximately six minutes and caused a tsunami. It is sometimes known in Japan as the "Great East Japan Earthquake" , among other names. It is often referred to by its numerical date, 3.11.

The Kandahar massacre, also called the Panjwai massacre, was a mass murder that occurred in the early hours of 11 March 2012, when United States Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales murdered 16 Afghan civilians and wounded six others in the Panjwayi District of Kandahar Province, Afghanistan. Nine of his victims were children, and 11 of the dead were from the same family. Some of the corpses were partially burned. Bales was taken into custody later that morning when he told authorities, "I did it".

The Bombardier Challenger 600 series is a family of business jets developed by Canadair after a Bill Lear concept, and then produced from 1986 by its new owner, Bombardier Aerospace. At the end of 1975, Canadair began funding the development of LearStar 600, and then bought the design for a wide-cabin business jet in April 1976. On 29 October, the programme was launched, backed by the Canadian federal government, and designed to comply with new FAR part 25 standards.

The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) which coordinates responses to international public health issues and emergencies. It is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, and has six regional offices and 150 field offices worldwide. Only sovereign states are eligible to join, and it is the largest intergovernmental health organization at the international level.

The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces.

Tatmadaw, officially the Defence Services, is the combined military of Myanmar, comprising the three main branches of Army, Navy and Air Force. The 2008 Constitution requires all the armed forces of Myanmar to be under the command of the Defence Services. Auxiliary services include the Myanmar Police Force, the Border Guard Forces, the Myanmar Coast Guard, and the People's Militia Units. From 1960s to 1990s, the full official name was the Pyithu Tatmadaw or People's Defence Services. The neutral term for military without the royal connotation is Sit-Tat, and the general term for armed forces is Letnetkai-Tat.