March 11 ...

In 537 the Goths began their siege on Rome, which was defended against successfully by Roman leader Belisarius. In 1810 Emperor Napoleon of France was married by proxy to Archduchess Marie Louise of Austria. In 1851 the opera Rigoletto, written by Giuseppe Verdi, was first performed in Venice. In 1861 the Confederate convention in Montgomery, AL, adopted a constitution. In 1888 the famous "Blizzard of '88" struck the northeastern United States, resulting in some 400 deaths. In 1930 former President and Chief Justice Taft was buried in Arlington National Cemetery; also on this day Babe Ruth signed a two-year contract with the New York Yankees for the sum of $80,000. In 1941 President Franklin Roosevelt signed into law the Lend-Lease Act, providing war supplies to countries fighting the Axis. In 1942 as Japanese forces continued to advance in the Pacific during World War II, Gen. Douglas MacArthur left the Philippines for Australia, vowing: "I shall return." In 1946 Pravda denounced Winston Churchill as anti-Soviet and a warmonger. In 1959 the Lorraine Hansberry drama A Raisin in the Sun opened in New York City. In 1965 the Rev. James J. Reeb, a white minister from Boston, died after being beaten by whites during civil rights disturbances in Selma, AL. In 1977 more than 130 hostages held in Washington by Hanafi Muslims were freed after ambassadors from three Islamic nations joined the negotiations. In 1985 Mikhail S. Gorbachev was chosen to succeed the late Soviet President Konstantin U. Chernenko as the chairman of the Soviet Communist Party. In 2004 ten bombs exploded in quick succession across the commuter rail network in Madrid, Spain, killing 191 people and wounding more than 2,000 in an attack linked to al-Qaida.