February 11 ...

In 1531 King Henry VIII was recognized as the supreme head of the Church in England. In 1765 wig makers petitioned King George III of England for financial relief as the male fashion of wearing wigs came to an end. In 1766 the Stamp Act was declared unconstitutional in the state of Virginia. In 1768 a Samuel Adams letter opposing Townshend Act taxes was circulated among the American colonies. In 1790 American Quakers presented a petition to Congress calling for the abolition of slavery. In 1805 Sacajawea, the Shoshoni guide for Lewis and Clark, gave birth to a son, Jean Baptiste. In 1812 Massachusetts Gov. Elbridge Gerry signed a redistricting law favoring his party, the Democratic-Republicans, giving rise to the term "gerrymandering." In 1815 news of the Treaty of Ghent, that ended the War of 1812, finally reached the United States. In 1847 Thomas Alva Edison was born in Milan, OH. In 1858 a French girl, Bernadette Soubirous, claimed for the first time to have seen a vision of the Virgin Mary near Lourdes. In 1861 President-elect Lincoln departed Springfield, IL, for Washington. In 1937 a sit-down strike against General Motors ended, with the company agreeing to recognize the United Automobile Workers Union. In 1945 President Franklin Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet leader Josef Stalin signed the Yalta Agreement during World War II. In 1953 President Eisenhower refused a clemency appeal for Russian spies Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. In 1964 The Beatles performed their first live concert in the US at the Coliseum in Washington, DC. In 1966 San Francisco Giants Hall of Fame outfielder Willie Mays became the highest-paid player in either league when he signed a two-year contract with the team for a salary of $130,000 a year. In 1975 Margaret Thatcher became the first female leader of a UK political party after she defeated Edward Heath for the Conservative Party leadership. In 1978 China announced the ending of a 10-year ban on 70 renowned classical and modern international writers including Aristotle, Plato, Shakespeare, Honore de Balzac, Jonathon Swift, Victor Hugo, Charles Dickens, and Mark Twain. In 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. In 1986 Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky was released by the Soviet Union after nine years of captivity as part of an East-West prisoner exchange. In 1990 Nelson Mandela was freed after 27 years in a South African prison. In 2005 CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan quit amid a furor over remarks he'd made about journalists being targeted by the US military in Iraq.