On This Day - What happened 11 June

On 11 June 1899, Yasunari Kawabata was born into a well-established family in Osaka, Japan.

In early June 1940 the Italian Royal Air Forces attacked and besieged Malta, a British possession. The siege lasted from June 1940 to November 1942, the fight for the control of the strategically important island of the British Crown Colony of Malta, which pitted the air forces and navies of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany against the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Royal Navy. By May 1943, the Allied forces had sunk 230 Axis ships in 164 days, the highest Allied sinking rate of the war. The Allied victory in Malta played a major role in the eventual Allied success in North Africa.

On 11 June, Charles de Gaulle drove to Arcis-Sur-Aube and offered General Hunziger (Commander of the Central Army Group) Weygand's job as Commander-in-Chief.

Later on, 11 June de Gaulle attended the meeting of the Anglo-French Supreme War Council at the Chateau du Muguet at Briare. The British were represented by Churchill, Anthony Eden, John Dill, General Ismay, and Edward Spears, and the French by Reynaud, Pétain, Weygand, and Georges.

Churchill was determined to fight back and ordered the commencement of the Western Desert campaign on 11 June, an immediate response to the Italian declaration of war. This went well at first while the Italian army was the sole opposition and Operation Compass was a noted success.

On 11 June, the North sent three diplomats to the South as a peace overture that Rhee rejected outright.

On the night of June 11, 1962, with all preparations in place, the men began their escape. However, the cement employed to shore up crumbling concrete around West's vent had hardened, diminishing the hole in size and fixing the grill in place. By the time he managed to remove the grill and re-widen the hole to egress, the others had already left, as he was soon to discover; he busted out to the prison roof only to return to his cell around sunrise and go to sleep. West went on to cooperate fully with investigators and give them a detailed description of the escape plan, in consequence of which he was not punished for his role in it.

Frank Lee Morris (September 1, 1926 – disappeared June 11, 1962) was born in Washington, D.C.[19] He was abandoned by his mother and father during his childhood, and orphaned at age 11, The Anglin brothers, John William (May 2, 1930 – disappeared June 11, 1962) and Clarence (May 11, 1931 – disappeared June 11, 1962) were born into a family of thirteen children in Donalsonville, Georgia. Their parents, George Robert Anglin and Rachael Van Miller Anglin, were seasonal farmworkers; in the early 1940s, Allen Clayton West (March 25, 1929 – December 21, 1978) was born in New York City. He was imprisoned for car theft in 1955, first at Atlanta Penitentiary, then at Florida State Prison. After an unsuccessful escape attempt from the Florida facility, he was transferred to Alcatraz in 1957 and became inmate AZ1335.

From the service corridor, Morris and the Anglins climbed the ventilation shaft to the roof. Guards heard a loud crash as they broke out of the shaft, but since nothing further was heard, the source of the noise was not investigated. Hauling their gear with them, they descended 50 feet (15 m) to the ground by sliding down a kitchen vent pipe, then climbed two 12-foot (3.7 m) barbed-wire perimeter fences. At the northeast shoreline, near the power plant—a blind spot in the prison's network of searchlights and gun towers they inflated their raft with the concertina. At some time after 10 p.m., investigators estimated, they boarded the raft, launched it and departed toward their objective, Angel Island, two miles to the north.

Saudi Arabia announces that it will increase its participation in Aramco to 60 percent. Abu Dhabi and Kuwait follow in September. Increases are retroactive to January 1.

In the early hours of June 11, UW student Georgann Hawkins vanished while walking down a brightly lit alley between her boyfriend's dormitory residence and her sorority house. The next morning, three Seattle homicide detectives and a criminalist combed the entire alleyway on their hands and knees, finding nothing. After Hawkins' disappearance was publicized, witnesses came forward to report seeing a man that night who was in an alley behind a nearby dormitory. He was on crutches with a leg cast and was struggling to carry a briefcase. One woman recalled that the man asked her to help him carry the case to his car, a light brown Volkswagen Beetle.

On 12 June 1975, the Allahabad High Court declared Indira Gandhi's election to the Lok Sabha in 1971 void on grounds of electoral malpractice. The court ordered her stripped of her parliamentary seat and banned from running for any office for six years. As the constitution holds that the Prime Minister must be a member of either the Lok Sabha or the Rajya Sabha, the two houses of the Parliament of India, this would have effectively removed her from office. However, Gandhi rejected calls to resign and announced plans to appeal to the Supreme Court. Gandhi insisted that the conviction did not undermine her position, despite having been unseated from Lok Sabha.

The 1981 Golbaf earthquake occurred on June 11 at 10:54:25 local time with a moment magnitude of 6.6 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII+ (Severe). Total damage was considered moderate and amounted to $5 million in financial losses, with many injured, and 1,400–3,000 killed.

On the night of 11 June, after several days of painstaking reconnaissance and logistic build-up, British forces launched a brigade-sized night attack against the heavily defended ring of high ground surrounding Stanley. Units of 3 Commando Brigade, supported by naval gunfire from several Royal Navy ships, simultaneously attacked in the Battle of Mount Harriet, Battle of Two Sisters, and Battle of Mount Longdon.

By 1987, unemployment was falling, the economy was stable and strong and inflation was low. Opinion polls showed a comfortable Conservative lead, and local council election results had also been successful, prompting Thatcher to call a general election for 11 June that year, despite the deadline for an election still being 12 months away. The election saw Thatcher re-elected for a third successive term.

On June 11, 2010, Biden represented the United States at the opening ceremony of the World Cup, attended the England v. U.S. game, and visited Egypt, Kenya, and South Africa.

3 WTC opened on June 11, 2018, becoming the fourth skyscraper at the site to be completed.

Russia reached 500 thousand infections on July 11.

On June 11, 2020, the European Union announced that it will be pressing charges against Amazon over its treatment of third-party e-commerce sellers.

Ben Jonson, an English playwright and poet, was born in London.

John Constable was born in East Bergholt, Suffolk, England in 1776.