Year 1687
Madras' first presidency chartered with a Mayor s court as a Municipal Corporation.
DECEMBER 11
Daily Historical Chronicle
UPSC CSE • State PSC • SSC CGL Matrix
11 December: What Happened On This Day in History
Curated historical timeline of momentous political pacts, freedom struggle uprisings, constitutional developments, scientific breakthroughs, and prominent birthdays recorded on 11 December.
Observances & Special Days
Indiana Day (United States)
Year 1780
Goddard General, Bassein fort was captured near Bombay.
Year 1816
Indiana became the 19th state of the United States.
Year 1845
First battle between Britishers and Sikhs. In 1849, Punjab lost its independence. This is referred as the first Anglo-Sikh War.
Year 1908
New law suspends trial by jury and increases penalties for 'sedition'.
Year 1930
C. V. Raman awarded Nobel Prize.
Year 1941
Germany and Italy declared war against America. First Italy’s ruler Benito Mussolini and then Germany’s dictator Adolf Hitler made this announcement.
Year 1946
Establishment of UNICEF.
Year 1958
Wilson Jones became India's first individual World Champion when he won the Amateur Billiards Championship.
Year 1967
A magnitude 6.5 earthquake shook Koyna, killing at least 180 people and injuring 1,500 others.
Year 1968
Indian born Har Govind Khorana receives the Nobel Price for medicine and physiology.
Year 1971
The elite para-commandos and parachute battalions -India's 'Red Devils', as they are affectionately called, have an unsurpassed ethos and elan of their own. 2 Para Battalion executed a superb airborne assault operation at Tangail in East Pakistan, which was the first of its kind in the subcontinent.
Year 1972
Apollo 17, the sixth spacecraft in the Apollo mission, landed on the moon.
Year 1986
The United Nations Children's fund (UNICEF) completes 40 years of work on behalf of children (11-12-86).
Year 1987
Rajiv Government defeats the first ever no-confidence motion.
Year 1990
Naresh Chandra was appointed as the Cabinet Secretary of India. He held this office till 31-07-1992.
Year 1990
T. N. Seshan appointed CEC, and Mohan Dharia Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission.
Year 1991
Murali Manohar Joshi, BJP President, sets out on 'the Kanyakumari to Kashmir Ekta Yatra' (unity march).
Year 1991
The centre notifies the interim order of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal directing Karnataka to release 205 tmc ft of water to Tamil Nadu.
Year 1992
UP acquistion of land in Ayodhya quashed by Allahabad High Court.
Year 1993
Shankar Dayal Sharma, President, inaugurates the extended new wing of Nagpur Vidhan Bhavan.
Year 1994
H.D. Deve Gowda, Janata Dal leader, assumes office as CM of Karnataka.
Year 1996
T. N. Seshan retires. M. S. Gill becomes the new election Chief Election Commissioner.
Year 1998
Kavi Pradeep (84), poet who received 1998 Dadasaheb Phalke award, dies in Mumbai. He was a patriotic song writer and wrote several immortal Hindi film songs.
Year 1999
Dr. M. L. Madhu, poet and translator, wins the Pushkin Gold Medal award.
Year 1999
Leander Paes capped a brilliant year with his successive Challenger title, this time in Jaipur, beating Barry Cowan in the final.
Year 1999
Gopalakrishna Gandhi, former High Commissioner to South Africa, is conferred the honorary doctorate by the University of Natal, Durban, South Africa.
Year 2001
China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO).
Year 2006
Astronaut Sunita William reached the ISS (International Space Station).
Born 1803
Hector Berlioz, a French Romantic composer.
Born 1822
John Nicholson, a British Victorian era military officer known for his role in British India.
Born 1843
Robert Koch, a Jewish born German physician, and microbiologist.
Born 1872
Rajkhova Benudhar, modern Assamese poet, was born.
Born 1876
Raobahadur Yeshwantrao Harishchandra Desai, famous architect, was born.
Born 1881
Subramania Bharati was born at Ettaiyapuram.
Born 1882
Subramanian Bharathi, a Tamil writer, poet, journalist, Indian independence activist, social reformer, and polyglot.
Born 1906
Mysore Gururaj Vijayasarathi, cricket Test umpire for 13 tests from 1951-60, was born in Karnataka.
Born 1918
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, a Russian novelist, philosopher, historian, short story writer, and a political prisoner.
Born 1922
Dilip Kumar, is an Indian actor, producer, and philanthropist.
Born 1926
Kamala Kant Pandey was born at Varanasi. He was the first Indian agriculture graduate to win the London Exhibition Scholarship. He was elected fellow of the Linnean Society of London in 1966. In 1975, he made the discovery of a "revolutionary technique in plant breeding".
Born 1929
Subhash Gupte, Indian cricketer (d. 2002)
Born 1931
Rajneesh, also known as Osho, an Indian godman, mystic, and founder of the Rajneesh movement.
Born 1934
Salim Durani, Afghan-Indian cricketer
Born 1935
Pranab Mukherjee, an Indian politician, and the 13th President of India.
Born 1936
Rajagopala Chidambaram, an Indian Physicist.
Born 1952
Venu Srinivasan, an Indian industrialist, and the Chairman of TVS Group.
Born 1963
Kewalam Madhav Panikkar, veteran politician and famous historian, passed away.
Born 1969
Viswanathan Anand, an Indian chess grandmaster, and former world chess champion.
Born 1980
Jignesh Mevani, an Indian politician.
Born 1882
Subramania Bharati, Indian journalist and poet (d. 1921)
Died 1783
Raghunathrao Peshwa, 10th Peshwa of the Maratha Empire.
Died 1928
Lewis Howard Latimer, an American inventor.
Died 1938
Mahavir Prasad Dwivedi, famous Hindi litterateur and editor, passed away.
Died 1976
Aliyawar Jung, former Governor of Maharashtra, died.
Died 1978
Vincent du Vigneaud, an American biochemist.
Died 1987
G. A. Kulkarni, Indian author and academic (b. 1923)
Died 1988
Dr. Nagendra Singh, 74, President of the International Court of Justice, passed away in Hague.
Died 1991
R. G. Sardesai, veteran journalist, died.
Died 1998
Kavi Pradeep, an Indian poet, and songwriter.
Died 2002
Nanabhoy Palkhivala, an Indian jurist, and liberal economist.
Died 2004
M. S. Subbulakshmi, an Indian Carnatic singer from Madurai, Tamil Nadu.
Died 2012
Pandit Ravi Shankar, an Indian musician and composer of Hindustani classical music.
Died 2013
Sheikh Mussa Shariefi, Indian philosopher and scholar (b. 1942)
Died 2015
Hema Upadhyay, Indian painter and sculptor (b. 1972)