Australian History
Saturday, April 11, 1992. : It is reported that a tiny tooth has changed beliefs about the origins of Australian marsupials.
The scientific world has long upheld the belief that marsupials are an inferior species, only surviving in Australia due to the absence of placental mammals. For years, it was believed that, when the Australian continental land mass broke away from the Antarctic, marsupials were the only mammals present. They were then able to thrive, in the isolation of an island continent.
On 11 April 1992, Science News reported that a tiny ancient fossil tooth from a placental mammal had been discovered in New South Wales. This discovery overturned traditional belief that marsupials dominated the continent by default. The presence of the tiny tooth has proven to the scientific world that marsupials were forced to compete with placental mammals, resulting in the eventual extinction of the latter.
World History
Friday, April 11, 1890. : Joseph Merrick, the ‘Elephant Man’, dies.
Joseph Carey Merrick was born on 5 August 1862 in Leicester, England. He began showing signs of deformity when he was only two. Merrick’s mother died when he was eleven, and after no relatives wanted him, he was forced to earn his living selling shoe polish. He was nicknamed the “Elephant Man” because of the abnormal masses of flesh which developed on his face and body. Other employment doors were closed to him, so in desperation, he offered himself as a sideshow attraction. Recent studies have suggested that Merrick suffered either from neurofibromatosis type I, a genetic disorder also known as von Recklinghausen’s disease, or Proteus syndrome, which affects tissue other than nerves – or even a combination of the two.
Merrick was only treated decently when he was befriended by Dr Frederick Treves, a surgeon at London Hospital. Treves often referred to him as “John”, so it is a common misconception that the Elephant Man’s name was John Merrick. Merrick became something of a celebrity in High Victorian society, eventually becoming a favourite of Queen Victoria. He was well cared for at the hospital, and immersed himself in writing both prose and poetry. Merrick died on 11 April 1890 after the weight of his malformed head suffocated him in his sleep.
World History
Sunday, April 11, 1954. : Today is (apparently) the most boring day since the beginning of the 20th century.
William Tunstall-Pedoe is a University of Cambridge-trained computer scientist. In 2010, he claimed that 11 April 1954 was calculated by his own search engine ‘True Knowledge’ to be the most boring day in the 20th and 21st centuries, to date. Tunstall-Pedoe wrote a script to answer the question “What was the most boring day in history?”. The search engine determined that, on that day, a general election was held in Belgium; Turkish academic Abdullah Atalar was born; and an Oldham Athletic footballer called Jack Shufflebotham died. True Knowledge analysed 300 million facts before arriving at the conclusion that, according to its inventor, “…this particular day was extremely notable for having almost nothing happen”.
World History
Tuesday, April 11, 1961. : The trial of Adolf Eichmann, ‘Chief Executioner of the Third Reich’, begins.
Adolf Eichmann was a member of the Austrian Nazi party in World War II. After his promotion to the Gestapo’s Jewish section, he was essentially responsible for the extermination of millions of Jews during the war. He is often referred to as the ‘Chief Executioner’ of the Third Reich. After the war Eichmann escaped to Argentina in South America, but was located and captured by the Israeli secret service in 1960.
Eichmann’s trial in front of an Israeli court in Jerusalem started on 11 April 1961. He faced fifteen criminal charges, including crimes against humanity, crimes against the Jewish people and war crimes. As part of Israeli criminal procedure, his trial was presided over by three judges instead of a jury, all of whom were refugees from the Nazi regime in Germany. Eichmann was protected by a bulletproof glass booth and guarded by two men whose families had not suffered directly at the hands of the Nazis. Eichmann was convicted on all counts and sentenced to death on 15 December 1961. He was hanged a few minutes after midnight on 1 June 1962 at Ramla prison, the only civil execution ever carried out in Israel.
World History
Sunday, April 11, 1965. : 271 people are killed in the third deadliest tornado outbreak in US history.
Tornadoes are violent spinning storms typically shaped like a funnel with the narrow end on the ground. They are extremely destructive and are almost always visible due to water vapour from clouds and debris from the ground. Tornadoes can form in storms all over the world, but they form most famously in a broad area of the American Midwest and South known as Tornado Alley.
On Palm Sunday, 11 April 1965, six Midwest states experienced an outbreak of 47 confirmed tornadoes which left a total of 271 people dead and 3,400 injured. The worst-hit state was Indiana, in which 137 people died and 1,700 were injured as ten tornadoes cut a swathe of destruction in the late afternoon and early evening. Property damage exceeded $30 million. Some warnings were not received in time because many people were attending church, being Palm Sunday, an important day in the Christian calendar.
World History
Friday, April 11, 2008. : It is reported that a perfectly preserved baby woolly mammoth has given scientists the most detailed information regarding mammoth physiology.
Mammoths were ancient relatives of elephants. Distinctive for their long curved tusks, they are believed to have died out around 4,500 years ago.
On 11 April 2008, newspapers and scientific publications reported that the discovery of a perfectly preserved baby mammoth a year earlier had given new insights into the physiology of woolly mammoths. “Lyuba” was a female baby mammoth so named after the wife of the nomadic reindeer tribesman who found it. The mammoth calf was found in the remote Yamalo-Nenetsk region in May 2007. One hundred and thirty centimetres long, 90 centimetres tall and weighing only 50 kilograms, the creature was estimated to have been between three and four months old at the time it died.
The body of the mammoth was so perfectly preserved that it still had its trunk intact, eyes in place, and small tufts of fur on its skin. Using computer tomography (CT) scans, scientists were able to gain 3-D images of Lyuba’s innards, including her heart, liver, and other organs. The presence of silt and mud in its trunk, mouth, and digestive tract indicated the mammoth had died by drowning.