History for December 11

History for December 11 - On-This-Day.com:
Fiorello La Guardia 1882, Alexander Solzhenitsyn 1918, Rita Moreno 1931


J. Frank Wilson 1941, Brenda Lee 1944, Teri Garr 1949


1769 - Edward Beran of London patented venetian blinds.


1792 - France's King Louis XVI went before the Convention, which had replaced the National Assembly, to face charges of treason. He was convicted and condemned and was sent to the guillotine the following January.


1844 - Dr. Horace Wells became the first person to have a tooth extracted after receiving an anesthetic for the dental procedure. Nitrous Oxide, or laughing gas, was the anesthetic.


1936 - Britain's King Edward VIII abdicated in order to marry American Wallis Warfield Simpson. He became the Duke of Windsor.


1941 - Germany and Italy declared war on the United States. The U.S in turn declared war on the two countries.


1961 - The first direct American military support for South Vietnam occurred when a U.S. aircraft carrier carrying Army helicopters arrived in Saigon.


1981 - Muhammad Ali fought his last fight. He lost his 61st fight to Trevor Berbick.


1998 - The Mars Climate Orbiter blasted off on a nine-month journey to the Red Planet. However, the probe disappeared in September of 1999, apparently destroyed because scientists had failed to convert English measures to metric values.