NOW & THEN
11 NOVEMBER
1640: Thomas Wentworth, the 1st Earl of Strafford, was impeached by the House of Lords and sent to the Tower of London. He was later executed.
1675: Gottfried Leibniz demonstrated integral calculus for the first time.
1790: Chrysanthemums, native to China, were first brought to Britain from France.
1830: Mail first carried by railway, on newly opened Liverpool to Manchester line.
1836: Chile declared war on Bolivia and Peru.
1880: Australian outlaw Ned Kelly was hanged at Melbourne Gaol. His final words were reputed to be “Such is life”.
1887: The first sod of the Manchester Ship Canal was cut.
1909: Construction began on the US naval base at Pearl Harbour.
1918: Armistice signed by Germany and Allies at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, in Marshal Foch’s railway coach at Compiègne, France.
1920: The Cenotaph in Whitehall, London, Britain’s monument to her war dead, designed by Edwin Lutyens, was unveiled by King George V.
1920: The burials of unknown soldiers took place simultaneously at Westminster Abbey, London and the Arc de Triomphe, Paris.
1921: British Legion held its first Poppy Day.
1940: Willys produced the Jeep, so-called from the initials GP, for general purpose car.
1944: The Home Guard was disbanded.
1946: Stevenage in Herefordshire was designated first “new town” in Britain.
1982: Geoffrey Prime, GCHQ spy, was jailed for 35 years.
1988: George Bush defeated Michael Dukakis in United States presidential election.
1990: China told Saddam Hussein it would not use veto power to block UN Security Council resolution authorising military action to force Iraq out of Kuwait.
1991: The Metropolitan Police announced it would admit homosexuals to the force.
1992: Church of England general synod voted to allow women to become priests.
1995: The SFA ordered an investigation and the procurator fiscal’s office called for a police report into incidents, overlooked by the referee, involving Rangers’ Paul Gascoigne, in which an Aberdeen player needed five stitches in a head wound.
1997: Labour admitted Formula 1 motor-racing boss Bernie Ecclestone had donated £1m to it.
1999: The House of Lords Act was given Royal Assent, restricting membership of the British House of Lords by virtue of a hereditary peerage.
2006: The Queen unveiled the New Zealand War Memorial in London, commemorating the loss of soldiers from the New Zealand Army and the British Army.
2008: The world-famous QE2 liner left Southampton on its last ever voyage with thousands of well-wishers looking on. The 41-year-old liner was turned into a floating hotel in Dubai.
2014: An Italian appeals court overturned a mansluaghter charge against six scientists who failed to give adequate warning of a deadly earthquake.