Explore 11 May

Explore 11 May: Constantine dedicates his new capital on the Bosporus, the world’s oldest dated printed book is made in China, Minnesota joins the United States and a computer beats the world chess champion. Born today: songwriter Irving Berlin, Thai statesman Pridi Banomyong and computer pioneer Edsger Dijkstra.

This day through time →13 verified events across 5 eras

⌛13Full
Timeline ◈3Historic
Moments ♙6Born
Today ✦5Lives
Remembered ◉1Firsts &
Discoveries ☆1Sporting
Moments ♫1Culture
Stories

Arches in the outer ring of the Theodosian Walls of Constantinople

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Apaleutos25 · CC BY-SA 4.0Resized and cropped for display.

330

Constantine dedicates his New Rome

On 11 May 330 the emperor Constantine the Great formally dedicated the city he had rebuilt on the site of ancient Byzantium, on the strait that joins Europe and Asia. He had chosen the spot six years earlier, and in that time the old Greek town had been greatly enlarged with new walls, forums, palaces and a vast hippodrome for chariot racing.

Constantine called it New Rome, but people soon knew it as Constantinople, the city of Constantine. It became the capital of the Roman Empire in the east and remained the seat of Byzantine emperors for more than 1,100 years, until the Ottoman conquest of 1453. Today the city is Istanbul, still one of the great crossroads of the world.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Britannica: Constantine I ↗

The Minnesota State Capitol in Saint Paul

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Myotus · CC BY 4.0Resized and cropped for display.

1858

Minnesota becomes the 32nd state

On 11 May 1858 President James Buchanan approved the act of Congress admitting Minnesota to the Union, making it the 32nd state of the United States. The land of lakes and forests had been organised as Minnesota Territory in 1849, and its settlers had already drafted a state constitution the year before.

News travelled slowly to the new state. The message went by telegraph as far as Prairie du Chien in Wisconsin and then up the Mississippi by steamboat, so the people of Saint Paul learned some days later that their town was now a state capital. The name comes from a Dakota word describing the water of the Minnesota River.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Minnesota Secretary of State: Admission of Minnesota into the Union 1858 ↗

Spencer Perceval, prime minister from 1809, in an engraved portrait.

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Unknown author · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

1812

A prime minister is shot in Parliament

Early on the evening of 11 May 1812, Prime Minister Spencer Perceval walked into the lobby of the House of Commons on his way to a debate. John Bellingham, a Liverpool merchant who blamed the government for failing to help him after years of imprisonment in Russia, stepped forward and shot him in the chest. Perceval died within minutes.

Bellingham made no attempt to escape. He was tried at the Old Bailey four days later, found guilty and hanged a week after the shooting. Perceval, who had led the government since 1809, remains the only British prime minister to have been assassinated, and a memorial to him stands in Westminster Abbey.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: UK Parliament: The Assassination of Spencer Perceval ↗

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PEOPLE

Born Today

Image credit

Al Aumuller, World Telegram staff photographer · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

Born 1888

Irving Berlin

Russian-born American songwriter whose hits, including White Christmas and God Bless America, became part of the Great American Songbook.

Image credit

Hamilton Richards · CC BY-SA 3.0Resized and cropped for display.

Born 1930

Edsger W. Dijkstra

Dutch computer scientist whose shortest-path algorithm is still used in route-finding and network software.

Image credit

NASA/JPL-Caltech · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

Born 1881

Theodore von Kármán

Hungarian-born engineer and physicist who laid foundations of modern aerodynamics and helped found the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.

Image credit

Bryan Berlin · CC BY-SA 4.0Resized and cropped for display.

Born 1984

Andrés Iniesta

Spanish midfielder who scored the winning goal in the 2010 World Cup final and won four Champions League titles with Barcelona.

Image credit

Thai government (รัฐบาลไทย) · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

Born 1900

Pridi Banomyong

Thai lawyer and statesman who helped end absolute monarchy in 1932, founded Thammasat University and later served as prime minister.

Image credit

Studio publicity photograph · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

Born 1892

Margaret Rutherford

English actress loved for her comic roles, who won an Oscar for The V.I.P.s and played Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple on film.

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IDEAS THAT CHANGED THINGS

Firsts, Science & Discoveries

One of Deep Blue’s processor boards on display in a museum case.

Image credit

Erik Pitti from San Diego, CA, USA · CC BY 2.0Resized and cropped for display.

1997

A computer beats the world chess champion in a match

On 11 May 1997, in a rematch held in New York, IBM’s Deep Blue supercomputer won the sixth and final game against world champion Garry Kasparov in just 19 moves. That gave the machine the match by 3.5 points to 2.5, with two wins, one loss and three draws.

A year earlier Kasparov had beaten an earlier version of Deep Blue 4 to 2 in Philadelphia. The upgraded machine could examine around 200 million chess positions a second. Its win was the first time a computer had defeated a reigning world champion in a full match under standard tournament conditions, a landmark for artificial intelligence.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: IBM: Deep Blue ↗

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SPORTING HISTORY

Sporting Moments

The Ullevi stadium in Gothenburg, Sweden

Image credit

Andreas Palmnäs · CC BY 3.0Resized and cropped for display.

1983

Aberdeen beat Real Madrid in the rain

On a wet night in Gothenburg on 11 May 1983, Aberdeen met Real Madrid in the final of the European Cup Winners’ Cup. Eric Black gave the Scottish side an early lead, Juanito levelled for Madrid, and the match went to extra time with the pitch at the Ullevi stadium soaked by heavy rain.

With nine minutes of extra time left, substitute John Hewitt headed in Mark McGhee’s cross to win the game 2 to 1. The club, managed by a young Alex Ferguson, became only the third Scottish team to win a European trophy, and later that year added the European Super Cup by beating Hamburg.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: UEFA: 1982/83 Aberdeen sing in the rain ↗

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MUSIC • FILM • BOOKS • CULTURE

Culture Stories

The frontispiece and opening text of the printed Diamond Sutra scroll from Dunhuang

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Printed for Wang Jie in 868 (British Library) · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

868

The world’s oldest dated printed book

A note at the end of a Chinese copy of the Diamond Sutra, a Buddhist scripture, records that it was made by a man named Wang Jie on behalf of his two parents, for free distribution. The date it gives matches 11 May 868, which makes the scroll the earliest complete printed book known to carry a date.

The book was printed from carved wooden blocks onto seven strips of paper, pasted together into a scroll more than five metres long, with a finely cut picture of the Buddha at the start. It lay for centuries in a sealed cave library near Dunhuang in north-west China, was acquired by the explorer Aurel Stein in 1907 and is now in the British Library.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: British Library, International Dunhuang Programme: The Diamond Sutra ↗

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LIVES REMEMBERED