October 11

October 11 is the 284th day of the year (285th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 81 days remaining until the end of the year.

• 1138 – 1138 Aleppo earthquake: A massive earthquake destroys much of Aleppo, Syria.
• 1142 – A peace treaty between the Jin Dynasty and Southern Song Dynasty is formally ratified when a Jin Dynasty envoy arrives at the Song court.
• 1531 – Huldrych Zwingli is killed in battle with the Roman Catholic cantons of Switzerland.
• 1634 – A flood disaster kills 15,000 people in North Friesland, Denmark and Germany.
• 1649 – After a 10-day siege, the English New Model Army under Oliver Cromwell storms the town of Wexford, Ireland - 2,000 Irish troops and 1,500 civilians are killed.
• 1727 – King George II of Great Britain and Caroline of Ansbach are crowned king and queen.
• 1737 – Calcutta is struck by an earthquake, killing around 300,000 people.
• 1746 – War of Austrian Succession: The French defeat an army consisiting of Austrians, Dutch and British troops.
• 1767 – Surveying for the Mason–Dixon line, separating Maryland and Pennsylvania, is completed.
• 1776 – American War of Independence: In the Battle of Valcou, British forces destroy most United States Navy ships.
• 1797 – French Revolutionary Wars: The Royal Navy captures eleven Dutch Navy ships without any losses in the Battle of Camperdown.
• 1809 – Along the Natchez Trace in Tennessee, explorer Meriwether Lewis dies in mysterious circumstances.
• 1833 – A big demonstration at the gates of the legislature of Buenos Aires forces the ousting of governor Juan Ramon Balcarce and his replacement with Juan Jose Viamonte.
• 1852 – The University of Sydney, Australia is inaugurated.
• 1864 – Campina Grande, Brazil becomes a city.
• 1890 – In Washington, DC, the group Daughters of the American Revolution is founded.
• 1899 – The Second Boer War erupts between the United Kingdom and the Boers of Transvaal and the Orange Free State in present-day South Africa.

• 1906 – The San Francisco school board orders Japanese students to be taught in racially segregated schools (different schools from White American students), sparking a diplomatic crisis between the United States and Japan.
• 1910 – Former President Theodore Roosevelt becomes the first President of the United States to fly in an airplane.
• 1912 – First Balkan War: The Greek army liberates the city of Kozani.
• 1918 – The San Fermin earthquake hits Puerto Rico.
• 1941 – Beginning of the National Liberation War of Macedonia.
• 1942 – World War II: Battle of Cape Esperance - In northwest Guadalcanal, US troops intercept and defeat a Japanese fleet on their way to reinforce troops on the island.
• 1949 – Wilhelm Pieck is elected the first, and only, President of East Germany.
• 1954 – Frist Indochina War: The Viet Minh takes control of North Vietnam.
• 1957 – M.I.T. scientists calculate Sputnik's booster rocket's orbit.
• 1958 – NASA launches the Pioneer 1 lunar probe, which falls back to Earth and burns up.
• 1963 – West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, aged 87, submits his resignation.
• 1968 – NASA launches the Apollo 7 mission; Wally Schirra, Donn F. Eisele and Walter Cunningham on board.
• 1975 – Saturday Night Live is first broadcast.
• 1982 – The Tudor warship Mary Rose, which sank in 1545, is salvaged near Portsmouth, England.
• 1984 – On board the Space Shuttle Challenger, Kathryn D. Sullivan becomes the first American woman to perform a spacewalk.
• 1984 – An Aeroflot Tupolev Tu-54 airplane crashes into maintenance vehicles in Omsk, Siberia, killing 178 people.
• 1986 – Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan meet for talks in Reykjavik, Iceland.
• 1987 – German politician Uwe Barschel is found dead in his hotel room in Geneva, Switzerland.
• 1996 – A wood lorry and a school bus collide in Jogeva County, Estonia, killing 8 children.
• 2000 – The 100th Space Shuttle mission launches, with the Space Shuttle Discovery.

• 2002 – 7 people are killed in a bomb attack on a shopping mall in Vantaa, Finland.
• 2006 – A small aircraft piloted by baseball player Cory Lidle crashes into a residential building (a building where people live) in New York City, killing both Lidle and his flight instructor, with 21 people being injured.
• 2008 – Austrian far-right politician Jörg Haider is killed in a car crash.
• 2012 – The UN designates this the first International Day of the Girl Child.
• 2013 – The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons wins the Nobel Peace Prize, the second time in a row that an organization has won the prize outright.
• 2013 – At least 30 people die when a boat carrying them from North Africa gets into trouble off Lampedusa, in the Mediterranean Sea, just over a week after over 300 people are killed in a similar accident there.
• 2014 – Charles Michel becomes Prime Minister of Belgium, replacing Elio Di Rupo.
• 2019 – Prime Minister of Ethiopia Abiy Ahmed wins the Nobel Peace Prize.

• 1335 – Taejo of Joseon, ruler of Korea (d. 1408)
• 1616 – Andreas Gryphius, German poet (d. 1664)
• 1661 – Melchior de Polignac, French diplomat (d. 1742)
• 1671 – King Frederick IV of Denmark (d. 1730)
• 1672 – Pylyp Orlyk, Ukrainian diplomat (d. 1742)
• 1675 – Samuel Clarke, English philosopher (d. 1729)
• 1738 – Arthur Phillip, British admiral, Governor of New South Wales (d. 1814)
• 1739 – Grigory Potemkin, Russian military leader and statesman (d. 1791)
• 1755 – Fausto Elhuyar, Spanish chemist (d. 1833)
• 1758 – Hermann Wilhelm Olbers, German physician and astronomer (d. 1840)
• 1788 – Simon Sechter, Austrian music teacher (d. 1867)
• 1806 – Alexander Karadordevic, Prince of Serbia (d. 1886)
• 1814 – Jean Baptiste Lamy, first Archbishop of Santa Fe (d. 1888)
• 1815 – Pierre Napoléon Bonaparte, Italian-born adventurer (d. 1881)
• 1821 – George Williams, English founder of the YMCA (d. 1905)
• 1844 – Henry Heinz, American food manufacturer (d. 1916)
• 1846 – Carlos Pellegrini, President of Argentina (d. 1906)
• 1863 – Louis Cyr, famous Canadian strongman (d. 1912)
• 1865 – Hans E. Kinck, Norwegian philologist and author (d. 1926)
• 1871 – Johan Oscar Smith, Norwegian religious leader (d. 1943)
• 1872 – Harlan F. Stone, Chief Justice of the United States (d. 1946)
• 1872 – Emily Davison, British Women's Rights activist (d. 1913)
• 1876 – Paul Masson, French cyclist (d. 1944)
• 1879 – Ernst Mally, Austrian philosopher (d. 1944)
• 1881 – Hans Kelsen, Austrian legal theorist
• 1881 – Lewis Fry Richardson, British meteorologist (d. 1953)
• 1884 – Friedrich Bergius, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1949)
• 1884 – Eleanor Roosevelt, American human rights activist, First Lady of the United States (d. 1962)
• 1884 – Sig Ruman, American actor (d. 1967)
• 1885 – François Mauriac, French writer (d. 1970)
• 1885 – Alfred Haar, Hungarian mathematician (d. 1933)
• 1887 – Willie Hoppe, American billiards champion (d. 1959)
• 1891 – Kim Seong-Su, Korean journalist and politician (d. 1955)
• 1895 – Jakov Gotovac, Croatian composer (d. 1982)
• 1899 – Eddie Dyer, American baseball player (d. 1964)

• 1902 – Jayaprakash Narayan, Indian freedom fighter (d. 1979)
• 1905 – Jean-Marie Villot, French cardinal (d. 1979)
• 1905 – Fred Trump, American businessman, father of Donald Trump (d. 1999)
• 1911 – Juan Carlos Zabala, Argentine long-distance runner (d. 1983)
• 1913 – Joe Simon, American comic book artist and writer (d. 2011)
• 1918 – Jerome Robbins, choreographer (d. 1998)
• 1919 – Art Blakey, American jazz drummer (d. 1990)
• 1919 – Kader Firoud, Algerian footballer (d. 2005)
• 1919 – Jean Vander Pyl, voice of Wilma Flintstone in The Flintstones cartoon (d. 1999).
• 1920 – James Aloysius Hickey, American cardinal (d. 2004)
• 1920 – Edgar Negret, Colombian sculptor (d. 2012)
• 1924 – Mal Whitfield, American runner (d. 2015)
• 1925 – Elmore Leonard, American novelist (d. 2013)
• 1926 – Jean Alexander, English actress (d. 2016)
• 1926 – Thich Nhat Wanh, Vietnamese author, monk and poet
• 1926 – Neville Wran, former Premier of New South Wales (d. 2014)
• 1927 – Princess Joséphine Charlotte of Belgium (d. 2005)
• 1927 – William Perry, former United States Secretary of Defense
• 1927 – Jim Prior, English politician (d. 2016)
• 1928 – Marquis Alfonso de Portago, Grand Prix driver (d. 1957)
• 1929 – Curtis Amy, American saxophonist (d. 2002)
• 1929 – Raymond Moriyama, Canadian architect
• 1929 – Liselotte Pulver, Swiss actress
• 1930 – Ronnie Simpson, Scottish footballer (d. 2004)
• 1932 – Dottie West, country music singer (d. 1991)
• 1936 – C. Gordon Fullerton, American astronaut (d. 2013)
• 1937 – Bobby Charlton, English footballer
• 1937 – Jaan Kundla, Estonian politician
• 1939 – Maria Bueno, Brazilian tennis player (d. 2018)
• 1940 – Pouri Banayi, Iranian actress
• 1942 – Amitabh Bachchan, Indian actor, singer, producer, UNICEF Ambassador.
• 1942 – Richard Wilson, Baron Wilson of Dinton, British academic and politician
• 1943 – John Nettles, British actor
• 1943 – Ilmar Reepalu, Swedish politician
• 1946 – Sawao Kato, Japanese gymnast
• 1946 – Oba Chandler, American convicted murderer (d. 2011)
• 1947 – Lucas Papademos, Greek economist and former Prime Minister of Greece
• 1947 – Al Atkins, English singer-songwriter (Judas Priest)
• 1948 – Cecilia, Spanish singer (d. 1976)
• 1948 – Peter Turkson, Ghanaian cardinal
• 1949 – Daryl Hall, musician
• 1950 – Robert Pugh, Welsh actor

• 1951 – Jean-Jacques Goldman, French pop singer, songwriter
• 1951 – Kim Ja-ok, South Korean actress (d. 2014)
• 1951 – Charles Shyer, American director, producer and writer
• 1953 – David Morse, American actor, director, producer and screenwriter
• 1955 – Hans-Peter Briegel, German footballer
• 1956 – Nicanor Duarte Frutos, former President of Paraguay
• 1957 – Dawn French, British comedienne
• 1958 – Gregory Dudek, Canadian computer scientist and academic
• 1959 – Allan Little, Scottish BBC correspondent
• 1961 – Steve Young, American football player
• 1962 – Joan Cusack, American actress
• 1962 – Andy McCoy, Finnish-Swedish singer-songwriter, guitarist and producer
• 1963 – Jordi Villacampa, Spanish basketball player
• 1963 – Prince Faisal bin Al-Hussein of Jordan
• 1963 – Ronny Rosenthal, Israeli footballer
• 1965 – Sean Patrick Flanery, American actor
• 1965 – Juan Ignacio Cirac, Spanish physicist
• 1966 – Luke Perry, American actor (d. 2019)
• 1966 – Todd Snider, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
• 1967 – Daniel Razon, Filipino TV host, singer and minister
• 1968 – Claude Lapointe, Canadian ice hockey player
• 1969 – Prince Constantijn of the Netherlands
• 1969 – Merieme Chadid, Moroccan astronomer
• 1972 – Cherokee Parks, American basketball player
• 1973 – Steven Pressley, Scottish footballer
• 1975 – Orlando Maturana, Colombian footballer

• 1976 – Emily Deschanel, American actress
• 1976 – Dominic Aitchison, Scottish bass player and songwriter
• 1976 – Raivo Kotov, Estonian architect
• 1976 – Claudia Black, Australian actress
• 1977 – Ty Wigginton, American baseball player
• 1979 – Bae Doona, South Korean model and actress
• 1979 – Andy Douglas, American professional wrestler
• 1980 – Juan José Ribera, Chilean footballer
• 1981 – Beau Brady, Australian actor
• 1982 – Jermaine V. Mitchell, Rap musician
• 1983 – Bradley James, British actor
• 1983 – Ruslan Ponomariov, Ukrainian chess player
• 1985 – Michelle Trachtenberg, actress
• 1985 – Alvaro Fernandez, Uruguayan footballer
• 1985 – Margaret Berger, Norwegian singer
• 1987 – Mike Conley, Jr., American basketball player
• 1988 – Cinthia Fernandez, Argentine acrobat-dancer, actress and model
• 1988 – Omar Gonzalez, American soccer player
• 1988 – Seamus Coleman, Irish footballer
• 1989 – Michelle Wie, American golfer
• 1991 – Jack Garratt, English singer and songwriter
• 1992 – Cardi B, American rapper
• 1992 – Emilia Bottas, Finnish swimmer
• 1993 – Sean Murray, Irish footballer
• 2001 – Daniel Maldini, Italian footballer

• 1188 – Robert I, Count of Dreux (b. 1123)
• 1303 – Pope Boniface VIII
• 1347 – Louis IV, Holy Roman Emperor (b. 1282)
• 1424 – Jan Zizka, Czech general (b. 1360)
• 1531 – Huldrych Zwingli, Swiss Protestant leader (b. 1484)
• 1705 – Guillaume Amontons, French physicist and instrument maker (b. 1663)
• 1708 – Ehrenfried Walter von Tschirnhaus, German mathematician, physicist and physician and philosopher (d. 1651)
• 1779 – Casimir Pulaski, Polish fighter for American independence (b. 1745)
• 1809 – Meriwether Lewis, American explorer (suicide) (b. 1774)
• 1811 – Johann Conrad Ammann, Swiss physician and naturalist (b. 1724)
• 1813 – Robert Kerr, Scottish physician, writer and zoologist (b. 1757)
• 1830 – José de La Mar, President of Peru (b. 1778)
• 1852 – Ferdinand Eisenstein, mathematician (b. 1823)
• 1889 – James Prescott Joule, English physicist (b. 1818)
• 1896 – Anton Bruckner, Austrian composer (b. 1824)
• 1896 – Edward White Benson, Archbishop of Canterbury (b. 1829)

• 1915 – Jean-Henri Fabre, French writer, poet and naturalist (b. 1823)
• 1916 – King Otto of Bavaria (b. 1848)
• 1940 – Lluís Companys, Spanish President of Generalitat of Catalonia, (shot) (b. 1882)
• 1940 – Vito Volterra, Italian mathematician and physicist (b. 1860)
• 1961 – Chico Marx, American comedian (b. 1887)
• 1963 – Édith Piaf, French singer (b. 1915)
• 1963 – Jean Cocteau, French writer (b. 1889)
• 1965 – Dorothea Lange, American photographer (b. 1895)
• 1965 – Walther Stampfli, Swiss politician (b. 1884)
• 1971 – Tamanoumi Masahiro, Japanese sumo wrestler (b. 1944)
• 1976 – Alfredo Bracchi, Italian writer (b. 1897)
• 1977 – MacKinlay Kantor, American writer (b. 1904)
• 1987 – Uwe Barschel, German politician (b. 1944)
• 1989 – M. King Hubbert, American geophysicist (b. 1904)
• 1991 – Redd Foxx, American comedian and actor (b. 1902)
• 1993 – Jess Thomas, American tenor (b. 1927)
• 1996 – Lars Ahlfors, Finnish mathematician (b. 1907)
• 1996 – Renato Russo, Brazilian singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1940)
• 1998 – Richard Denning, American actor (b. 1914)
• 2000 – Donald Dewar, main writer of the Scotland Act and initial First Minister of the Scottish Parliament (b. 1937)

• 2003 – Edward Breathitt, Governor of Kentucky (b. 1924)
• 2004 – Keith Miller, Australian sportsman (b. 1919)
• 2005 – Edward Szczepanik, Polish economist and Prime Minister-in-exile (b. 1915)
• 2006 – Cory Lidle, American baseball player (b. 1972)
• 2007 – Werner von Trapp, one of the von Trapp family singers (b. 1915)
• 2007 – Sri Chinmoy, Indian spiritual teacher (b. 1931)
• 2008 – Jörg Haider, Austrian far-right politician (car crash) (b. 1950)
• 2012 – Helmut Haller, German footballer (b. 1939)
• 2012 – Edgar Negret, Colombian sculptor (b. 1920)
• 2013 – María de Villota, Spanish racing driver (b. 1980)
• 2013 – Erich Priebke, German Nazi war criminal (b. 1913)
• 2014 – Carmelo Simeone, Argentine footballer (b. 1933)
• 2014 – Tanhum Cohen-Mintz, Israeli basketball player (b. 1939)
• 2015 – Steve Mackay, American saxophonist (b. 1949)
• 2016 – Patricia Barry, American actress (b. 1922)
• 2017 – James R. Ford, American politician (b. 1925)
• 2017 – Clifford Husbands, Governor-General of Barbados (b. 1926)
• 2018 – Doug Ellis, English businessman (b. 1924)
• 2018 – Labinot Harbuzi, Swedish footballer (b. 1986)
• 2018 – Dieter Kemper, German cyclist (b. 1937)
• 2018 – Pran Nevile, Indian art historian (b. 1922)
• 2018 – Yoshito Sengoku, Japanese politician (b. 1946)
• 2018 – Hege Skjeie, Norwegian political scientist and columnist (b. 1955)
• 2018 – Greg Stafford, American game designer (b. 1948)
• 2018 – Hebe Uhart, Argentine novelist and columnist (b. 1936)
• 2019 – Sam Bobrick, American television writer (b. 1932)
• 2019 – Robert Forster, American actor (b. 1941)
• 2019 – John Giorno, American poet and performance artist (b. 1936)
• 2019 – Kadri Gopalnath, Indian saxophonist and composer (b. 1949)
• 2019 – Alexei Leonov, Soviet-Russian cosmonaut (b. 1934)
• 2020 – Hugo Arana, Argentine actor and comedian (b. 1943)
• 2020 – Harold Betters, American jazz trombonist (b. 1928)
• 2020 – Gary F. Jones, American racehorse trainer (b. 1944)
• 2020 – Terry McBrayer, American politician (b. 1937)
• 2020 – Ilya Moiseev, Russian chemist (b. 1929)
• 2020 – Joe Morgan, American baseball player (b. 1943)
• 2020 – John A. Ruthven, American wildlife artist (b. 1924)

• International Day of the Girl Child
• National Coming Out Day in some countries
• Revolution Day (Republic of Macedonia)
• Old Michaelmas (Christianity)