On this day: Prototype of Concorde, revealed
11 DECEMBER
1816: Britain restored Java, Indonesia, to the Netherlands.
1845: Sikhs crossed Sutlej River in India and surprised British, causing outbreak of war.
1878: French-British dual control in Egypt was suspended.
1903: The first wildlife preservation society in Britain was founded under the name Society for the Preservation of the Wild Fauna of the Empire.
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Hide Ad1914: Royal Flying Corps adopted the red, white and blue roundel for aircraft identification.
1931: Statute of Westminster, recognising independence of the Commonwealth, became law.
1936: Edward VIII abdicated as king, after a reign of 325 days, in favour of his brother, the Duke of York, who became King George VI.
1941: United States declared war against Germany and Italy.
1961: Two US helicopter companies arrived in Saigon on aircraft carrier in first direct American military support for South Vietnam’s battle against Communist guerrillas.
1967: Prototype of the world’s first supersonic airliner, Concorde, revealed.
1972: Two Apollo 17 astronauts, Captain Eugene Cernan and Doctor Harrison Schmitt, landed on the Moon in lunar module Challenger. They took three Moon walks in the Taurus-Littrow area.
1987: Charlie Chaplin’s famous cane and bowler were sold at Christie’s for £82,500, and his boots for £38,500.
1990: It was decided to place concrete puffins on the cliffs at Cardigan Island, west Wales, to try to lure real birds back.
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Hide Ad1991: William Kennedy Smith, nephew of senator Edward Kennedy, was acquitted of raping a woman on his family’s Florida estate.
1994: President Boris Yeltsin sent Russian tanks and troops into the renegade region of Chechnya.
1996: The Conservative government’s paymaster-general, David Willetts, resigned after a damning report about his involvement in the Commons cash-for-questions affair.
2008: Bernard Madoff was arrested and charged with securities fraud in a $50 billion Ponzi scheme.
2009: American golfer Tiger Woods announced that he was to take an indefinite leave from professional golf to try to work on “healing” his family after revelations surrounding infidelity.
2010: Two explosions occurred in a busy shopping district of Stockholm, Sweden, killing one and injuring two others.
BIRTHDAYS
Marco Pierre White, chef, 52; Anna Carteret, actress, 71; Teri Garr, actress, 64; Jermaine Jackson, singer, 59; Brenda Lee, singer, 69; Neil Mackie CBE, Scottish tenor, 67; Cliff Michelmore CBE, broadcaster, 94; Patrick Reyntiens OBE, designer and stained glass painter, 88; Raymond Robertson, MP 1992-97, chairman, Scottish Conservative Party 1997-2001, 54; Michaela Tabb, snooker and pool championship referee, 46.
ANNIVERSARIES
Births: 1475 Giovanni de’ Medici, pope who excommunicated Martin Luther; 1707 Charles Wesley, Methodist and prolific hymn writer; 1781 Sir David Brewster, physicist and inventor of kaleidoscope; 1803 Hector Berlioz, composer; 1843 Robert Kock, bacteriologist.
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Hide AdDeaths: 1282 Llewelyn Ab Gruffydd, Prince of Wales; 1964 Sam Cooke, singer; 1965 Ed Murrow, journalist and broadcaster; 1996 William Rushton, actor, author, cartoonist and broadcaster; 2008 Bettie Page, model and pin-up; 2012 Pandit Ravi Shankar, sitar player.