On This Day - What happened 11 May

Constantine decided to work on the Greek city of Byzantium, which offered the advantage of having already been extensively rebuilt on Roman patterns of urbanism, during the preceding century, by Septimius Severus and Caracalla, who had already acknowledged its strategic importance. The city was thus founded in 324, dedicated on 11 May 330, and renamed Constantinopolis ("Constantine's City" or Constantinople in English). Constantinople would be the capital of the Byzantine Empire.

Leo the Wise died in 912, and hostilities soon resumed as Simeon marched to Constantinople at the head of a large army. Although the walls of the city were impregnable, the Byzantine administration was in disarray and Simeon was invited into the city, where he was granted the crown of basileus (emperor) of Bulgaria and had the young emperor Constantine VII marry one of his daughters. When a revolt in Constantinople halted his dynastic project, he again invaded Thrace and conquered Adrianople.

The previous Palace of Westminster was also the site of a prime-ministerial assassination on 11 May 1812. While in the lobby of the House of Commons, on his way to a parliamentary inquiry, Spencer Perceval was shot and killed by a Liverpool merchant adventurer, John Bellingham. Perceval remains the only British Prime Minister to have been assassinated.

Workers from Solingen stormed the arsenal at Gräfrath and obtained arms and cartridges for the insurgents. Frederick Engels was active in the uprising in Elberfeld from May 11, 1849, until the end of the revolt.

Salvador Dalí was born on 11 May 1904, on the first floor of Carrer Monturiol, 20 in the town of Figueres, in the Empordà region, close to the French border in Catalonia, Spain.

11 May 1905: The 'Group', the revolutionary leadership, called for the workers at all the textile mills to strike.

Creditanstalt, Austria's premier bank with major stakes across a variety of industries, becomes insolvent after being forced to assume liabilities from three other insolvent banks, triggering a cascading effect of bank failures across Central Europe. Creditanstalt represented 16% of Austria's GDP, and could not find another institution to guarantee liquidity. 140 million Austrian schillings were lost. The collapse of Creditanstalt caused the Bank of France, the National Bank of Belgium, the Netherlands Bank, and the Swiss National Bank to begin a run on the U.S. dollar for their gold reserves, and forced the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates from 1.5% to 3.5% to maintain the gold standards, which in turn contributed to the deepening of the Depression and the second round of banking failures in the U.S. during the summer of 1931.

On 11 May the briefcase, complete with the documents, was returned to Haselden by the Spanish authorities; he forwarded it to London in the diplomatic bag.

On May 11, a regional commission in Palermo warned Luciano to stay out of trouble and released him.

The airlift worked; ground access was again granted on May 11, 1949. Nevertheless, the airlift continued for several months after that. The Berlin Airlift was one of Truman's great foreign policy successes; it significantly aided his election campaign in 1948.

Marley died on 11 May 1981 at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Miami (now University of Miami Hospital), aged 36. The spread of melanoma to his lungs and brain caused his death. His final words to his son Ziggy were "Money can't buy life."

Under heavy Iranian pressure, the Iraqi forces retreated. By 12 May, Iran had driven out all Iraqi forces from the Susangerd area.

On the evening of 11 May 1984, in Jackson Township, New Jersey, the Haunted Castle (Six Flags Great Adventure) caught fire. As a result of the fire, eight teenagers perished. The backlash to the tragedy was a tightening of regulations relating to safety, building codes and the frequency of inspections of attractions nationwide. The smaller venues, especially the nonprofit attractions, were unable to compete financially, and the better funded commercial enterprises filled the vacuum. Facilities that were once able to avoid regulation because they were considered to be temporary installations now had to adhere to the stricter codes required of permanent attractions.

Lieutenant Volodymyr Pravyk died on 11 May 1986 of acute radiation sickness. He was the First on the scene was a Chernobyl Power Station.

President Bush orders 1,900 additional combat troops to Panama (Operation Nimrod Dancer).

On May 22, Microsoft launched Windows 3.0, featuring streamlined user interface graphics and improved protected mode capability for the Intel 386 processor.

Totti was at risk of missing the 2006 World Cup, but returned to the side on 11 May 2006 as a substitute in Roma's 3–1 Coppa Italia final defeat to Inter.

On 11 May 2008, Vodafone sealed a trade agreement with the Chilean Entel PCS Chile, in which Entel PCS has access to the equipment and international services of Vodafone, and Vodafone will be one of the trademarks of Entel for the wireless business.

Cameron outlined how he intended to "put aside party differences and work hard for the common good and for the national interest." As one of his first moves Cameron appointed Nick Clegg, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, as Deputy Prime Minister on 11 May 2010.

On 11 May 2010, following the resignation of Gordon Brown as Prime Minister and on his recommendation, Queen Elizabeth II invited Cameron to form a government. At age 43, Cameron became the youngest Prime Minister since Lord Liverpool in 1812, beating the record previously set by Tony Blair in May 1997.

On 11 May, Immobile scored in the penultimate fixture of the season against Parma, but was sent off in the second half and suspended for the final match against Fiorentina. He concluded his season with 22 goals in 33 appearances, plus one goal in the Coppa Italia. He became the first Torino player to win the Capocannoniere since Francesco Graziani in the 1976–77 season.

On May 11, 2015, Hernandez was indicted for witness intimidation in relation to the Bradley shooting, since Bradley was reportedly a witness to the 2012 Boston double homicide. The intimidation charge for Hernandez carried a maximum penalty of ten years in prison. This charge was included in Hernandez's trial for the double homicide, which began on March 1, 2017. During the trial, it was revealed Bradley texted his lawyer this about the shooting in a deleted text message: "Now u sure once I withdraw this lawsuit I won't be held on perjury after I tell the truth about me not recalling anything about who shot me."

On 11 May 2019, HTC announced that its Cryptophone will be the first smartphone to support a bitcoin full node.

On 11 May 2020, the WHO declared that the number of infections has reached 4,006,257 cases and that the number of deaths was 278,892.