July 11

1174 – Baldwin IV, age 13, becomes King of Jerusalem, with Raymond III, Count of Tripoli as regent and William of Tyre as chancellor.

1576 – While exploring the North Atlantic Ocean in an attempt to find the Northwest Passage, the English mariner Martin Frobisher sights Greenland, mistaking it for the hypothesized (but non-existent) island of “Frisland”.

1796 – The U. S. takes possession of Detroit from Britain under terms of the Jay Treaty.

1798 – The United States Marine Corps is re-established after being disbanded after the Revolutionary War.

1804 – Vice President Aaron Burr mortally wounds Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton in a duel with pistols.

1864 – Battle of Fort Stevens; Confederate forces attempt to invade Washington D.C. during the War Between The States.

1895 – Brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière demonstrate motion picture technology

1914 – Babe Ruth makes his debut in Major League Baseball.

1921 – Former President William Taft is sworn in as the 10th Chief Justice of the U.S.

1960 – To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is first published in the U.S.
2 years later it is adapted to film and released.

1962 – Named Project Apollo,  NASA announces that the method of landing  astronauts on the Moon, and returning them to Earth will be via lunar orbit by a main vehicle and decent and return to rendezvous by a separate lander instead of direct landing.

1979 – America’s first space station, Skylab, is destroyed as it re-enters the Earth’s atmosphere over the Indian Ocean.

1983 – A Linea Aerea del Ecuador state airline Boeing 737–200 crashes near Cuenca, Ecuador, killing all 119 passengers and crew on board.

2005 – The final stage of the Department of Defense’s Military to Civilian conversion at Fort Knox’s Consolidated Weapons Facility begins.

2021 – Richard Branson becomes the first civilian to be launched into space on his own Virgin Galactic spacecraft.