May 8

June 11

1509 Henry VIII of England married Catherine of Aragon on June 11, 1509. The wedding was low-key and held at the friar's church in Greenwich a fortnight before Henry's coronation. Catherine was a member of the Third Order of Saint Francis and she was punctilious in her religious obligations in the Order, integrating without demur her necessary duties as queen with her personal piety. Of their six children, only one daughter, the future Mary I lived and the marriage was annulled in 1533.

Catherine of Aragon

1572 English poet, playwright and critic Ben Jonson was born on June 11, 1572 in Westminster, London. As a child, Ben was said to be so ugly and ridiculously clothed that he was tormented by his schoolmates. He spent his time reading to forget his misery. The second most important English dramatist, after William Shakespeare, during the reign of James I, today he is best remembered for his satiric comedies and his lyric and epigrammatic poetry.

1727 King George I of Great Britain suffered a stroke on the road between Delden and Nordhorn while visiting his native Hanover. The king was taken by carriage to the Prince-Bishop's palace at Osnabrück where he died in the early hours of June 11, 1727. King George was buried in the chapel of Leine Castle but his remains were moved to the chapel at Herrenhausen after World War II.

1742 On June 11, 1742 Benjamin Franklin, laid the foundations of modern stove design with his 'Pennsylvania Fireplace', which stood in the fireplace. It incorporated a grate and sliding doors that controlled the flow of air through the stove.  The grate of Franklin's stove extended out into the room, where it cast warmth in all directions, providing considerably more heat than the drafty open fireplace. It also enabled people to use less wood.

A Franklin stove

1776 English landscape painter John Constable was born in East Bergholt, in Suffolk on June 11, 1776. He was the son of a wealthy corn merchant, Golding Constable, who owned several windmills and watermills.  Constable's father was reluctant to let him pursue the uncertain career of an artist and insisted he went into the family business. Realising that his son’s passion for art would not abate, Constable's father gave him an allowance enabling him to study at the Royal Academy in London.

1796 Samuel Whitbread created the first purpose-built mass-production brewery in the UK - quickly becoming a household name across the country. Whitbread used his wealth to become an MP for Bedford, going on to campaign for the abolition of slavery and the introduction of a minimum wage. When he died on June 11, 1796, the Gentleman's Magazine claimed that he was "worth over a million pounds".

Samuel Whitbread by Sir Joshua  Reynolds

1844 The novelist and civil servant Anthony Trollope first met Rose Heseltine, the daughter of a Rotherham bank manager, in a pub in Kingstown, Ireland in 1842, where he was working and she on holiday with parents in 1842. He proposed to her on the beach at Dun Laoghaire, Ireland and they married on June 11, 1844. Rose proved to be an efficient and neat, wife, who bore Trollope two sons. It was a good marriage though it was later said he was married to his books.

1864 The composer Richard Strauss was born in Munich, Germany, on June 11, 1864. He wasn't related to the Austrian Johann Strauss family, famous for their waltzes - his father, Franz Strauss was the principal horn player at the Court Opera in Munich. Young Richard showed early signs of musical talent. When he was four-years-old, he played the piano well, by six he was composing, and at ten he was studying music seriously.

1867 The inspiration for many of Norwegian composer's Edvard Grieg's best songs was his cousin Nina Hagerup, whom he married on June 11, 1867. She was a concert singer and helped to make his music known throughout Europe. The next year their only child, Alexandra, was born but she died, at the age of 13 months. In 1883 Grieg and wife parted for a while, friends managed to persuade the couple to reconcile and they stayed together  until the death of Edvard in 1907,

The Griegs in 1899

1880 Politician Jeannette Pickering Rankin was born on June 11, 1880. In 1916, she became the first woman to hold national office in the United States when, she was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives by the state of Montana. An ardent pacifist, she believed that President Franklin D. Roosevelt provoked war with the Japanese, and was the only member of Congress to vote against the declaration of war on Japan following the attack on Pearl Harbor.

1886 Charles Dickens’ son Francis died on June 11, 1886. Francis Dickens became a Canadian Mountie in 1874 shortly after the March West which brought the original police force of 300 members to the modern provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta. He served at Fort Walsh, Fort Macleod and Fort Pitt, getting promoted to Inspector in 1880.

1889 The Neapolitan pizzamaker Raffaele Esposito created the Pizza Margherita on June 11, 1889, to honor the Queen consort of Italy, Margherita of Savoy. The pizza was garnished with tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil, to represent the national colors of Italy as on the Italian flag.

Pizza Margherita, the archetype of Neapolitan pizza

1909 George S Patton never seriously considered a career other than the military. While attending the Virginia Military Institute California's Senator nominated him for West Point. Patton's academic performance in his plebe (first) year at West Point was so poor that he was forced to repeat his first year after failing mathematics. His academic performance remained average throughout his time at there but he excelled at military drills. He graduated from West Point on June 11, 1909

1919 Sir Barton won the Belmont Stakes on June 11, 1919, becoming the first race horse to win what was to become to be known as the U.S. Triple Crown. Sir Barton's Triple Crown victory began with the Kentucky Derby on May 10, 1919, followed by the Preakness Stakes on May 16, 1919,


1934 Mandrake the Magician, one of the earliest and popular superheroes in the realm of comic strips, made his debut in a syndicated newspaper comic strip on June 11, 1934. Created by Lee Falk, Mandrake possessed magical abilities and used his skills as a crimefighter. The comic strip gained significant popularity, and Mandrake became a beloved character during the early days of comic book superheroes. Superman arrived four years later.

1939 Hot dogs gained an international reputation when on June 11, 1939 President Franklin D. Roosevelt served them to King George VI of England and his queen when they visited the United States. The press made a great deal about the hot dogs, (even making the front page of The New York Times).


1955 In auto racing's worst moment, Pierre Levegh's Mercedes flew into the crowd and exploded during the 24 Hours of Le Mans motor race at Circuit de la Sarthe in Le Mans, France on June 11, 1955.  Levegh and 83 spectators died and nearly 180 others were injured.

1959 Sir Christopher Cockrell began work on the hovercraft in 1953, carrying out his early experiments on Oulton Broad, Norfolk, England. In 1958 National Research Development Corporation placed a contract with Saunders-Roe for the development of what would become the SR.N1, short for "Saunders-Roe, Nautical 1." The SR.N1 hovercraft made its first hover on June 11, 1959 in front of the press and crossed the English Channel for the first time six weeks later.


1979 John Wayne died at age 72 on June 11, 1979 from stomach cancer. The cancer was likely caused by radiation poisoning. 91 other cast and crew also developed cancers after shooting The Conqueror downwind from recent US government nuclear weapons tests in 1956. By the end of 1980, 46 members of the film’s cast and crew had died from some form of the disease.

2011 The official world record for haggis hurling is 217 feet (66.1 metres) set by Lorne Coltart at the Milngavie Highland Games on June 11, 2011. He smashed Allan Pettigrew's 180 feet record (54.9 metres) which had stood for over twenty years.

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