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HISTORY & TIMELINE
11 January

A journey through
11 January in history

The eleventh day of the year has seen William Herschel find two moons of Uranus, Moroccan nationalists demand independence, Albania become a people’s republic and the US Surgeon General declare that smoking causes cancer. This timeline follows 11 January from the sixteenth century to the twentieth.

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III
A CHANGING WORLD

Early Modern Era

Exploration, political change, scientific development and expanding global connections.

1569
Old St Paul's Cathedral with its spire, where the lottery was drawn, seen from the south with its spire in an engraving by Wenceslaus Hollar.Old St Paul’s Cathedral with its spire, where the lottery was drawn, seen from the south with its spire in an engraving by Wenceslaus Hollar.Image: Wenceslas_Hollar_-_St._Paul's_from_the_south_showing_the_spire_(State_1).jpg: Original upload by User:Dcoetzee, revision by User:Bob Castle derivative work: Bob Castle (talk) · Public domain
culture · Europe

England’s first state lottery is drawn

Elizabeth I’s government announced a great lottery in 1567 to raise money for harbours and other public works. The drawing began on 11 January 1569 at the west door of St Paul’s Cathedral in London and went on day and night until May. The top prize was £5,000, paid partly in cash and partly in plate, tapestries and linen.

Source: British Library: the first national lottery ↗
1787
Titania, the largest moon of Uranus, photographed by Voyager 2 on 24 January 1986.Titania, the largest moon of Uranus, photographed by Voyager 2 on 24 January 1986.Image: NASA/JPL · Public domain
science · Europe

William Herschel finds two moons of Uranus

In 1781 William Herschel, a German-born musician turned astronomer living in Bath, had discovered Uranus, the first planet found since ancient times. He went on building ever larger telescopes to study it. On 11 January 1787 he identified two moons circling the planet, its largest. They were later named Titania and Oberon, after the fairy queen and king of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream; the planet’s moons have been named after literary characters ever since. Only Voyager 2, passing in 1986, showed their surfaces close up.

Source: NASA Science: Titania ↗
IV
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

The 1800s

Industry, empire, invention, reform and a century of enormous transformation.

1879
Cetshwayo kaMpande, king of the Zulu, photographed by Alexander Bassano in London; published 1885.Cetshwayo kaMpande, king of the Zulu, photographed by Alexander Bassano in London; published 1885.Image: "Photographed by Alex. Bassano, 25, Old Bond Street" · Public domain
world · Africa

British forces invade the Zulu kingdom

In December 1878 Sir Bartle Frere, Britain’s high commissioner in southern Africa, sent King Cetshwayo of the Zulu an ultimatum he could not accept: to disband his army and give up much of his power within thirty days. Frere wanted the Zulu kingdom out of the way of a British-led confederation of South Africa. When the time ran out, British columns under Lord Chelmsford crossed into Zululand on 11 January 1879, the main force at Rorke’s Drift on the Buffalo River. Eleven days later the Zulu army destroyed part of it at Isandlwana, one of the worst defeats of a British army by an African force. Britain sent reinforcements, and in July the war ended with the burning of Cetshwayo’s capital, Ulundi.

Source: South African History Online: Anglo-Zulu Wars 1879-1896 ↗
V
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

The 1900s

War and peace, technological leaps, social change, politics, sport and popular culture.

1922
Charles Best (left) and Frederick Banting, about 1924 (University of Toronto Library).Charles Best (left) and Frederick Banting, about 1924 (University of Toronto Library).Image: Unknown author · Public domain
science · Americas

A dying boy is the first person given insulin

Before 1922 type 1 diabetes was a death sentence; the only treatment was a near-starvation diet. At the University of Toronto, Frederick Banting and Charles Best, working in John Macleod’s laboratory, had extracted from dogs’ pancreases a substance that lowered blood sugar. On 11 January 1922, at Toronto General Hospital, 14-year-old Leonard Thompson received the first injection. It had little effect, but after the biochemist James Collip purified the extract, his second course from 23 January worked. Within months insulin was being made in quantity, and it has since kept millions of people alive. Thompson lived another 13 years.

Source: Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto: Leonard Thompson ↗
1923
French soldiers on a street in the occupied Ruhr in 1923; a German civilian walks past.French soldiers on a street in the occupied Ruhr in 1923; a German civilian walks past.Image: UnknownUnknown · CC BY-SA 3.0 de
politics · Europe

French and Belgian troops occupy the Ruhr

Under the Treaty of Versailles, Germany owed vast reparations to the countries it had fought. When it fell behind with deliveries of coal and timber, the French prime minister, Raymond Poincaré, decided to take payment by force from the Ruhr, the coal-mining and steel-making heart of German industry. On 11 January 1923 French and Belgian troops marched in. The German government called for passive resistance: workers went on strike and were paid by printing money, which turned Germany’s inflation into one of the worst collapses of a currency in history. The resistance ended that September, and under the Dawes Plan of 1924 the occupiers agreed to leave, which they did by 1925.

Source: 1914-1918-online, International Encyclopedia of the First World War: Ruhr occupation ↗
1935
Amelia Earhart in 1937, standing under the nose of her Lockheed Electra (National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian).Amelia Earhart in 1937, standing under the nose of her Lockheed Electra (National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian).Image: Underwood & Underwood (active 1880 – c. 1950)[1] · Public domain
science · Americas

Amelia Earhart flies solo from Hawaii to California

By 1935 Amelia Earhart was already the first woman to have flown the Atlantic alone. The 2,400-mile crossing from Hawaii to the American mainland was a different challenge: several pilots had died trying it, and no one had ever made it alone. On 11 January 1935 she took off from Honolulu in her single-engined Lockheed Vega. After just over 17 hours in the air she landed at Oakland, California, to a waiting crowd, the first person to fly that route solo. Two years later she disappeared over the Pacific while trying to fly around the world.

Source: Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum: Amelia Earhart ↗
1942
Japanese troops in the streets of Kuala Lumpur during their advance through Malaya, 1942.Japanese troops in the streets of Kuala Lumpur during their advance through Malaya, 1942.Image: Unknown · Public domain
world · Asia

Japanese troops take Kuala Lumpur

Japan invaded Malaya on 8 December 1941, the same day as its attacks on Pearl Harbor and Hong Kong. General Tomoyuki Yamashita’s troops moved fast down the peninsula, often on bicycles, outflanking the British, Indian and Australian defenders, and at Slim River on 7 January they broke through. On 11 January 1942 Japanese forces entered Kuala Lumpur, capital of the Federated Malay States, which the defenders had abandoned. By the end of the month they held the whole peninsula, and on 15 February Singapore surrendered. Malaya stayed under Japanese occupation until 1945.

Source: Australian War Memorial: Kuala Lumpur, Malaya, 11 January 1942 (photograph record) ↗
1946
Enver Hoxha, Albania's communist leader, in an official portrait of 1968.Enver Hoxha, Albania’s communist leader, in an official portrait of 1968.Image: Petrit Kumi · Public domain
politics · Europe

Albania is proclaimed a people’s republic

After communist partisans took power at the end of the Second World War, a constituent assembly elected the month before proclaimed the People’s Republic of Albania on 11 January 1946 and abolished the monarchy of the exiled King Zog. Under Enver Hoxha, who ruled until his death in 1985, it became one of the most closed and repressive states in Europe.

Source: Library of Congress: Albania, a country study ↗
1964
The cover of Smoking and Health, the 1964 report of the Surgeon General's Advisory Committee.The cover of Smoking and Health, the 1964 report of the Surgeon General’s Advisory Committee.Image: United States Public Health Service, Office of the Surgeon General; Surgeon General's Advisory Committee on Smoking and Health; National Library of Medicine, National Institute of Health · Public domain
science · Americas

The US Surgeon General declares that smoking causes cancer

By the early 1960s about four in ten American adults smoked. Studies had been linking cigarettes to lung cancer for more than a decade, but the tobacco industry disputed them. In 1962 the Surgeon General, Luther Terry, set up a panel of ten experts, none of whom had taken a public stand on smoking, to review the evidence. Their report, released on Saturday 11 January 1964, drew on more than 7,000 studies and concluded that smoking caused lung cancer in men and was the most important cause of chronic bronchitis. It made headlines across the country and led to health warnings on cigarette packets and, over the following decades, a long decline in smoking.

Source: US National Library of Medicine, Profiles in Science: the 1964 report on smoking and health ↗
RESEARCH

Sources & Further Reading

Selected authoritative references supporting the events on this page.

WHY THESE MOMENTS?

Significance before volume

This page is not the longest possible list of events. It is a chronological journey through 11 January, where each entry is chosen for historical significance, human interest and reliability.

Facts are checked against authoritative museums, archives, universities and reference works. Where sources disagree, the page says so.

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