What Happened On
Rap Music Killer
April 11, 1992
19-year-old Ronald Ray Howard kills a state trooper who stopped him for a broken headlight. He claimed the anti-police rap music he was listening to made him do it. The car he was driving was stolen and drug tests showed he had cocaine and cannabis in his system. He was convicted and executed for the crime. The song he blamed was Tupac's Soulja's Story with the lyrics:
Cops on my tail, so I bail 'til I dodge 'em
They finally pull me over and I laugh
"Remember Rodney King?" and I blast on his punk ass
Now I got a murder case…
…What the fuck would you do? Drop them or let 'em drop you?
I chose droppin' the cop
Apollo 13 Launched
April 11, 1970
Two days later an oxygen tank exploded, leading to famous expression, "Houston, we've had a problem here". The mission to land on the Moon was aborted. The crew was able to overcome limited power, loss of cabin heat, shortage of potable water, and the need to make makeshift repairs to the carbon dioxide removal system and return safely to Earth six days later.
Note: The actual phrase was "Okay, Houston, we've had a problem here", spoken by Jack Swigert. After being asked to repeat the transmission Jim Lovell responded with "Uh, Houston, we've had a problem". In the 1995 movie Apollo 13, the line was shortened to the more dramatic, "Houston, we have a problem".
Jackie Robinson Breaks a Color Barrier
April 11, 1947
Jackie Robinson becomes the first African-American to play Major League baseball in the modern era when he plays in an exhibition game for the Brooklyn Dodgers against the New York Yankees. He would play his first regular season game four days later.
Note: The last African-American to play major league baseball before Robinson was Moses Fleetwood Walker, who played for the Toledo Blue Stockings in 1884.
Only U.S. General Killed in the Indian Wars
April 11, 1873
American General Edward Canby is killed by Indian chief Captain Jack while negotiating peace talks with the Modoc tribe, making him the only U.S. general killed during the Indian wars. The Modoc tribe, who had traditionally lived in Northern California, were forced to move to a reservation in Oregon which they were forced to share with their traditional enemies, the Klamath tribe. When requests to the U.S. government to return to California were refused, war broke out. The Modoc had fought to a stalemate and General Canby was sent to negotiate peace terms. When relocation to California was once again refused, Captain Jack killed Canby. Peace commissioner Reverend Eleazar Thomas was also killed in the confrontation.
Note: Although General George Armstrong Custer was given the temporary rank of major general of the Volunteers during the American Civil War, he was only a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army at the time of his infamous last stand in 1876.
Thomas Jefferson on Jesus' Followers
April 11, 1823
Former U.S. President Thomas Jefferson writes in a letter to former U.S. President John Adams, "the truth is that the greatest enemies to the doctrines of Jesus are those calling themselves the expositors of them, who have perverted them for the structure of a system of fancy absolutely incomprehensible, and without any foundation in His genuine words. And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his Father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter."
Note: Minerva was the Roman Goddess of Wisdom who was born inside Jupiter after he swallowed her mother, having tricked her into turning herself into a fly. At birth, she burst out his head fully armed and clad in armor.
Ritual Sacrifice
April 11, 1989
The bodies of 15 people, mutilated by cultists, are discovered in Matamoros, Mexico. The victims, including a 21-year-old Univ. of Texas student, were killed as part of a ritual to protect drug smugglers from the police.
Idi Amin Overthrown
April 11, 1979
Ugandan President Idi Amin is overthrown by Yusufu Lule. Two days later Lule was sworn in as president.
Civil Rights Act
April 11, 1968
U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signs into law the Civil Rights Act, making housing discrimination illegal.
Baseball - First Black Major-League Umpire
April 11, 1966
Emmett Ashford umpires at third base for the season opener of the American League.
His flamboyant style behind home plate would prompt a reporter to declare, "For the first time in the history of the grand old American game, baseball fans may buy a ticket to watch an umpire perform."
He also went on to do some acting, appeared in commercials, television, and as an umpire in the movie The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings (1976).
New York Mets
April 11, 1962
The New York Mets play their first game, losing a road game to the St. Louis Cardinals (11-4). They were created to replace New York's departed NL teams, the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants.
Passport using name of "Ricardo Klement" that Eichmann used to enter Argentina in 1950
Passport using name of "Ricardo Klement" that Eichmann used to enter Argentina in 1950
Nazi War Criminal Adolf Eichmann Goes on Trial
April 11, 1961
The German SS officer Adolf Eichmann, who organized the transportation of Jews to concentration camps for "the final solution" during World War II, goes on trial in Israel for war crimes. He was found guilty in December and hanged the following May.
After the war Eichmann was captured by the U.S., but was using forged papers that identified him as "Otto Eckmann." He eventually escaped and in 1950 used a phony passport to travel to Argentina. He was discovered hiding in Argentina after his son, Klaus Eichmann, bragged to his girlfriend about his Nazi father. He was then captured by Israeli Mossad agents and smuggled to Israel where he stood trial.
Korean War - Truman Relieves MacArthur of Command
April 11, 1951
U.S. President Harry S. Truman relieves Gen. Douglas MacArthur of all command for making unauthorized statements.
View of the Dead Sea from a Qumran cave in which some of the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered and portions of the scrolls
View of the Dead Sea from a Qumran cave in which some of the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered and portions of the scrolls
Dead Sea Scrolls
April 11, 1948
Discovery of the Dead Seas Scrolls is announced to the public.
The Dead Sea Scrolls are Jewish religious texts found in the Qumran Caves near the Dead Sea. Dating back to between 150 B.C. and A.D. 70, they include some of the oldest known surviving manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible.
The scrolls were initially discovered between November 1946 and February 1947 by Bedouin shepherds who found seven scrolls in jars in a cave near what is now known as the Qumran site. They took a handful of scrolls back to their camp to show their family, where the scrolls were hung on a tent pole. Eventually, they took them to a dealer who rejected them, saying they were worthless, but were able to sell three of the scrolls to another dealer for seven Jordanian pounds (approximately $28, or $367 in 2022 dollars). It wasn't until 1948 the significance of the scrolls was determined.
First State Cigarette Tax
April 11, 1921
Iowa legalizes the sale of cigarettes in that state and levies a tax of $1 per 1,000 cigarettes.
Queen Anne's War
April 11, 1713
The Treaty of Utrecht signed ending the war.
Birthdays
Sheffied (right) in Tarzan Finds a Son!
Sheffied (right) in Tarzan Finds a Son!
Boy in the Tarzan Movies
Johnny Sheffield
Born April 11, 1931 d. 2010
American actor. Film: He played Boy in the eight Tarzan movies of the 1940s and later starred in the Bomba the Jungle Boy (1949-55) movies. He died of a heart attack after falling from a ladder while pruning a tree at the age of 79.
Meshach Taylor
Born April 11, 1947 d. 2014
American actor. TV: Designing Women (1986-1993, Anthony Bouvier).
Citation
Born April 11, 1945 d. 1970
American thoroughbred race horse. 1948 Triple Crown winner, and the first race horse to win $1,000,000 (1951).
Louise Lasser
Born April 11, 1939
American actress. TV: Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (title role).
Tony Brown
Born April 11, 1933
American journalist. TV: Black Journal (1968-77, host) and Tony Brown's Journal (1978-2008, host).
Joel Grey (Joel Katz)
Born April 11, 1932
American Oscar-Tony-winning actor. Broadway: Cabaret (1966, Tony, as the emcee). Film: Cabaret (1972, Oscar, as the emcee).
Nicholas F. Brady
Born April 11, 1930
American banker, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury.
Norman McLaren
Born April 11, 1914 d. 1987
Scottish-born Canadian film animator. Film: Neighbors (1952, Oscar), in which he animated actual actors by filming them one frame at time while slightly changing their positions.
Oleg Cassini
Born April 11, 1913 d. 2006
French-born fashion and costume designer. He was the official couturier to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.
Pauline Tabor Webster
Born April 11, 1905 d. 1992
Kentucky's most famous brothel owner. She ran the Clay Street Brothel in Bowling Green, Kentucky for 38 years. Autobiography: Pauline's - Memoirs of the Madame on Clay Street.
James Parkinson
Born April 11, 1755 d. 1824
English surgeon. He described the disease of shaking palsy (1817), which now bears his name. He was also one of the first to give a scientific account of fossils.
Lucius Septimius Severus
Born April 11, 146 d. 211
Roman Emperor (193-211).
Deaths
Jonathan Winters (Jonathan Harshman Winters)
Died April 11, 2013 b. 1925
American Emmy-Grammy-winning comedian. Film: It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963). TV: Mork & Mindy (1981-82, their son Mearth). Comedy Albums: The Wonderful World of Jonathan Winters (1960).
Created the Russet Potato
Luther Burbank
Died April 11, 1926 b. 1849
American naturalist. He created hundreds of new breeds of flowers, plants, and trees, including the Russet Burbank Potato (1873), which launched the Idaho potato industry.
The Russet Burbank potato has dark brown skin and few eyes and is most widely grown potato in North America. It is good for baking, mashing, and french fries.
Elephant Man
Joseph Merrick
Died April 11, 1890 b. 1862
The Elephant Man.
'Tis true my form is something odd,
But blaming me is blaming God;
Could I create myself anew
I would not fail in pleasing you.
If I could reach from pole to pole
Or grasp the ocean with a span,
I would be measured by the soul;
The mind's the standard of the man.
- poem used by Merrick, adapted from "False Greatness" by Isaac Watts.
Although his condition has not been definitively diagnosed, some believe he had Proteus Syndrome. According to the pamphlet used for his exhibition, at about five years old he started to develop "thick lumpy skin… like that of an elephant, and almost the same colour." His family said this was the result of his mother being knocked over and frightened by a fairground elephant while she was pregnant with Joseph. The belief that the emotional experiences of pregnant women could have lasting physical effects on their unborn children was still common in that time. Merrick held this belief for his entire life.
Only U.S. General Killed in the Indian Wars
Edward Richard Sprigg Canby
Died April 11, 1873 b. 1817
American general. General Edward Canby was the only U.S. general killed during the Indian wars. He was killed by Indian leader Captain Jack while negotiating peace talks with the Modoc tribe. The Modoc tribe, who had traditionally lived in Northern California, were forced to move to a reservation in Oregon which they were forced to share with their traditional enemies, the Klamath tribe. When requests to the U.S. government to return to California were refused, war broke out. The Modoc had fought to a stalemate and General Canby was sent to negotiate peace terms. When relocation to California was once again refused, Modoc chief Captain Jack killed Canby. Peace commissioner Reverend Eleazar Thomas was also killed in the confrontation.
Note: Although General George Armstrong Custer was given the temporary rank of major general of the Volunteers during the American Civil War, he was only a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army at the time of his infamous last stand in 1876.
Jerome Geils
Died April 11, 2017 b. 1946
American guitarist, founder of J. Geils Band. Music: Must Have Got Lost (1974), Freeze-Frame (1981), and Centerfold (1981, #1).
Roscoe Lee Browne
Died April 11, 2007 b. 1922
American Emmy-winning actor. TV: Falcon Crest (1988, Rosemont).
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Died April 11, 2007 b. 1922
American author. Writings: Slaughterhouse-Five (1969).
James E. Brown
Died April 11, 1992 b. 1920
American actor. TV: The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin (1954-59, Lt. Rip Masters).
Erskine Caldwell
Died April 11, 1987 b. 1903
American author. Writings: Tobacco Road (1932) and God's Little Acre (1933).
Dolores del Río
Died April 11, 1983 b. 1904
Mexican actress. She was the first major female Latin cross-over star in Hollywood. Film: Maria Candelaria (1943) and The Fugitive (1947).
Ted De Corsia
Died April 11, 1973 b. 1903
American actor. His death was attributed to radiation exposure received from an A-bomb test near the filming of the movie The Conqueror in 1953. By 1980, of the 220 members of the cast and crew, 91 of them had developed some form of cancer and 46 had died of the disease.
Film: The Enforcer (1951) and The Conqueror (1956).
James Anthony Bailey
Died April 11, 1906 b. 1847
American showman. P.T. Barnum's partner in Barnum & Bailey's Circus and owner of Jumbo, the giant elephant.
Francis Pharcellus Church
Died April 11, 1906 b. 1839
American editor. Author of Is There a Santa Claus? (1897) article in response to 8-year-old Virginia O' Hanlon's question.
Saint Stanislaus
Died April 11, 1079 b. 1030
Bishop of Krakow, and patron saint of Poland.
Donus
Died April 11, 678 b. ????
Italian religious leader, 78th Pope (676-678).