February 11 in History

• 1753

  February 11, 1753:

  The Pennsylvania Hospital admits its first batch of patients.

• 1858

  February 11, 1858:

  Bernadette Soubirous, a 14-year-old girl witnesses her first Marian apparition in Lourdes, France.

• 1929

  February 11, 1929:

  The Vatican’s Pietro Gasparri and Italy’s Benito Mussolini sign the Lateran Treaty to officially recognize the sovereignty of the papacy over Vatican City.

• 1949

  February 11, 1949:

  “Lovesick Blues”, a song by Hank Williams is released by MGM.

• 1975

  February 11, 1975:

  Margaret Thatcher is elected as the UK’s Conservative Party’s leader.

• 1989

  February 11, 1989:

  The Protestant Episcopal Church’s Reverend Barbara Clementine Harris becomes the first woman to be ordained a bishop of an apostolic-succession church.

• 1990

  February 11, 1990:

  South Africa’s Nelson Mandela becomes a free man after spending 27 years in prison.

• 2011

  February 11, 2011:

  The Arab Spring in Egypt achieves results when President Hosni Mubarak finally steps down, having ruled for close to three decades.

• 2016

  February 11, 2016:

  PBS and CNN broadcast the sixth Democratic Presidential candidate debate.

• 2020

  February 11, 2020:

  The World Health Organisation formally names the new infection, which is gradually taking the world by storm, as Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19).