Today in History in 1908 The Grand Canyon National Monument is created; in 1927 Louis B. Mayer, head of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, announces the creation of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; and in 1935 Amelia Earhart is the first woman to fly solo from Hawaii to California.

The On This Day In History archives at “Simple English Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia” contains over 200,000 events, birthdays and deaths from 6,000 years of history. Here is a roundup of a few of them:

January 11 is the 11th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 354 days remaining until the end of the year (355 in leap years).

EVENTS

314 – Pope Miltiades ends his reign as the Catholic Pope.

532 – Nika riots in Constantinople.

1158 – Vladislav II becomes King of Bohemia.

1569 – First recorded lottery in England.

1571 – Austrian nobility is granted freedom of religion.

1693 – Mount Etna erupts in Sicily, Italy.

1759 – In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the first American life insurance company is incorporated.

1779 – Ching-Tang Khomba is crowned King of Manipur in present–day northeastern India.

1787 – William Herschel discovers Titania and Oberon, two moons of Uranus.

1805 – Michigan Territory is created.

1861 – Alabama secedes from the United States.

1863 – American Civil War: Battle of Arkansas Post – General John McClernand and Admiral David Dixon Porter capture the Arkansas River for the Union.

1866 – British passenger ship London sinks in a storm in the Bay of Biscay, killing 220 out of the 239 people on board.

1867 – Benito Juárez becomes Mexican president again.

1879 – Anglo-Zulu War begins.

1880 – Total solar eclipse blackens the sky of San Francisco one day after the funeral of Emperor Norton.

1902 – Popular Mechanics magazine was published for the first time.

1908 – The Grand Canyon National Monument is created.

1917 – The Kingsland Munitions Factory explosion occurs in Lyndhurst, New Jersey.

1919 – Romania annexes Transylvania.

1922 – First use of insulin to treat diabetes in a human patient.

1923 – Troops from France and Belgium occupy the Ruhr area to force Germany to pay its reparation payments.

1927 – Louis B. Mayer, head of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, announces the creation of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

1935 – Amelia Earhart is the first woman to fly solo from Hawaii to California.

1938 – Frances Moulton is the first woman to become president of a US national bank.

1942 – Japan declares war on the Netherlands and invades the Netherlands East Indies.

1942 – The Japanese capture Kuala Lumpur.

1943 – The United States and United Kingdom give up territorial rights in China.

1946 – Enver Hoxha declares the People's Republic of Albania with himself as dictator.

1946 – Porfirio Barba-Jacob's ashes go back to Colombia.

1949 – First recorded case of snowfall in Los Angeles, California.

1954 – A series of avalanches in the state of Vorarlberg in Austria kills 135 people.

1957 – The African Convention is founded in Dakar.

1960 – Chad declares its independence.

1962 – An avalanche occurs in the Huascaran region in Peru; 4,000 deaths.

1962 – Cold War: While tied to its pier in Polyarny, the Soviet submarine B-37 is destroyed when fire breaks out in its torpedo compartment.

1963 – The Whisky A Go-Go night club in Los Angeles, the first disco in the US, is opened.

1964 – United States Surgeon General Luther Leonidas Terry reports smoking may be hazardous to health. First such statement from US government.

1972 – East Pakistan becomes Bangladesh.

1973 – Beginning of the Watergate burglars trial.

1974 – The world's first surviving set of sextuplets are born to Susan Rosenkowitz in Cape Town, South Africa.

1976 – In Ecuador, Guillermo Rodriguez Lara is removed from power by the military.

1980 – Nigel Short, 14, is the youngest chess player to be given the degree of International Master.

1981 – In Spain, Cantabria becomes an autonomous community.

1982 – A cold snap sends temperatures to record lows in dozens of cities throughout the Midwestern United States.

1986 – The Gateway Bridge, Brisbane in Queensland, Australia was officially opened.

1990 – 300,000 march in favor of Lithuanian independence.

1992 – Paul Simon is the first major artist to tour South Africa after the end of the cultural boycott.

1994 – Irish Government announces the end of a 15–year broadcasting ban on the IRA and its political arm Sinn Féin

1996 – Haiti becomes a member of the Berne Convention copyright treaty.

1996 – Ryutaro Hashimoto becomes Prime Minister of Japan.

1998 – Sidi-Hamed massacre in Algeria; over 100 people killed.

2001 – The Federal Trade Commission approved the merger of AOL and Time Warner to form AOL Time Warner.

2002 – The first prisoners arrive at the US detention center in Guantanamo Bay, on the island of Cuba.

2003 – Illinois governor George H. Ryan announces decision to grant clemency to all inmates of death row.

2005 – Black Tuesday bushfires swept across the southern Eyre Peninsula in South Australia.

2013 – President of France François Hollande authorizes military intervention in the conflict in Mali.

2015 – Over a million people march in Paris for freedom of speech after the attack on Charlie Hebdo magazine a few days earlier.

2015 – Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic is elected to become the first female President of Croatia.

2018 – US President Donald Trump is involved in a racism controversy over words he is said to have used to describe Haiti, El Salvador and African countries.

2024 – The Iranian Navy seizes control of the Marshall Islands–flagged, United States–controlled & Greek–operated civilian oil tanker St Nikolas.