March 11th:

2011- 9.0 magnitude earthquake strikes 130 km (80 miles) east of Sendai, Japan, triggering a tsunami killing thousands of people and causing the second worst nuclear accident in history at Fukushima nuclear plant

2020- COVID-19 declared a pandemic by the head of the World Health Organization Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, with 121,564 cases worldwide and 4,373 deaths

1779- US Army Corps of Engineers established (1st time)

1791- Samuel Mulliken is 1st to obtain more than one US patent

1823- 1st normal school in US opens, Concord Academy, Concord, Vermont

1850- Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania opens, 2nd female medical school in the US

1872- The Meiji Japanese government officially annexes the Ryukyu Kingdom into what would become the Okinawa prefecture

1892- 1st public basketball game (Springfield, Massachusetts)

1918- US Army mess cook Private Albert Gitchell of Fort Riley, Kansas becomes the first documented case of Spanish flu; start of worldwide pandemic killing 50-100 million

1967- Pink Floyd releases 1st single “Arnold Layne”

1968- Otis Redding is the first person in the US to posthumously receive gold record for his single “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay”

1986- NFL adopts instant replay rule

My source and more facts at On This Day