A few of the great historical events that happened today in history, February 11th!
| 1531 | Henry VIII is recognized as the supreme head of the Church of England. |
| 1805 | Sixteen-year-old Sacajawea, the Shoshoni guide for Lewis & Clark, gives birth to a son, with Meriwether Lewis serving as midwife. |
| 1809 | Robert Fulton patents the steamboat. |
| 1815 | News of the Treaty of Ghent, ending the War of 1812, finally reaches the United States. |
| 1847 | Inventor Thomas Alva Edison was born in Milan, Ohio. |
| 1858 | 14-year-old Bernadette Soubirous, a French miller’s daughter, claims to have seen an apparition of the Virgin Mary at Lourdes.
 Bernadette Soubirous |
| 1903 | Congress passes the Expedition Act, giving antitrust cases priority in the courts. |
| 1904 | President Theodore Roosevelt proclaims strict neutrality for the United States in the Russo-Japanese War. |
| 1910 | Theodore Roosevelt Jr. and Eleanor Alexander announce their wedding date–June 20, 1910. |
| 1926 | The Mexican government nationalizes all church property. |
| 1929 | Italy recognized the independence and sovereignty of Vatican City. |
| 1936 | The Reich arrests 150 Catholic youth leaders in Berlin. |
| 1937 | A sit-down strike against General Motors ended with the company agreeing to recognize the United Automobile Workers Union. |
| 1939 | The Negrin government returns to Madrid, Spain. |
| 1942 | The German battleships Gneisenau, Scharnhorst and Prinz Eugen begin their famed channel dash from the French port of Brest. Their journey takes them through the English Channel on their way back to Germany. |
| 1945 | President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Josef Stalin wrapped up a conference at Yalta in the Crimea by signing a series of agreements on the governance of post-World War II Europe. |
| 1951 | U.N. forces push north across the 38th parallel for the second time in the Korean war. |
| 1953 | Walt Disney’s film Peter Pan premieres.  |
| 1954 | A 75,000-watt light bulb is lit at the Rockefeller Center in New York, to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Thomas Edison’s first light bulb. |
| 1955 | Nationalist Chinese complete the evacuation of the Tachen Islands. |
| 1959 | Iran turns down Soviet aid in favor of a U.S. proposal for aid. |
| 1962 | Poet and novelist Sylvia Plath commits suicide in London at age 30. |
| 1963 | American author and poet Sylvia Plath was found dead in London, a suicide; she was 30. |
| 1964 | Cambodian Prince Sihanouk blames the United States for a South Vietnamese air raid on a village in his country. |
| 1965 | President Lyndon Johnson orders air strikes against targets in North Vietnam, in retaliation for guerrilla attacks on the American military in South Vietnam. |
| 1966 | Vice President Hubert Humphrey begins a tour of Vietnam. |
| 1974 | Communist-led rebels shower artillery fire into a crowded area of Phnom Pehn, killing 139 and injuring 46 others. |
| 1975 | Margaret Thatcher became the first woman to head a major party in Britain when she was elected leader of opposition Conservative Party.
 Margaret Thatcher |
| 1979 | Followers of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini seized power in Iran, nine days after the religious leader returned to his home country following 15 years of exile. |
| 1990 | South African political leader Nelson Mandela is released from prison in Paarl, South Africa, after serving more than 27 years of a life sentence. |
| 2008 | The Defense Department charged Khalid Sheikh Mohammed with murder and war crimes in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks. |
| 2009 | Democrat John Dingell of Michigan became the longest-serving member of the U.S. House of Representatives with more than 53 years of service. |
| 2009 | President Robert Mugabe swore in longtime rival Morgan Tsvangirai as Zimbabwe’s prime minister. |
| 2012 | Singer Whitney Houston was found dead in a hotel room in Beverly Hills, Calif., at age 48. (Her death was later ruled an accidental drowning, with heart disease and cocaine use as contributing factors.) |
Today in History facts are from various sites including, but not limited too: the History Channel, The New York Times, WHG Historynet.com, and HistoryOrb.com.
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