Today is the 11th day of 2012. There are 355 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight

1913: The first sedan-type automobile, a Hudson, went on display at the 13th National Automobile Show in New York.

Other Events

1569: First lottery in England is drawn in St Paul’s Cathedral under the patronage of Queen Elizabeth I.

1815: Sir John A MacDonald, the first prime minister of Canada, was born in Glasgow, Scotland.

1919: Romania annexes Transylvania.

1935: Aviator Amelia Earhart begins a trip from Honolulu to Oakland, California, becoming the first woman to fly solo across the Pacific Ocean.

1939: Abu Dhabi Ruler Sheik Shakhbout signs emirate’s first oil agreement, with a British-led consortium.

1942: Japan declares war against The Netherlands, the same day that Japanese forces invade the Dutch East Indies.

1943: Britain and the US relinquish extraterritorial rights in China.

1964: US Surgeon General Luther Terry issues the first government report saying smoking may be hazardous to one’s health.

1970: In Nigeria, 32-month-old secessionist Biafran regime collapses under onslaughts by Nigerian military.

1977: France set off an international uproar by releasing Abu Daoud, a PLO official behind the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.

1986: L Douglas Wilder becomes Lt Governor of Virginia, making him the first African-American sworn in as a Southern state official since the American Civil War.

1990: About 250,000 people demonstrate in favour of independence in the Lithuanian capital as Mikhail Gorbachev arrives there to persuade the local Communist Party to retract its decision to break with national party.

1997: Burundian soldiers shoot and kill 126 Hutu refugees trying to break out of a holding camp in north-eastern Burundi.

1999: Haiti’s President Rene Preval dissolves Parliament after a 22-month impasse with no working government. He appoints a premier and a Cabinet by decree.

2001: Gen Augusto Pinochet, the former Chilean dictator, enters the Santiago military hospital to undergo neurological and mental tests ordered by a judge seeking to try him on human rights charges.

2003: The Indian Government and the Naga faction, one of the longest-running separatist insurgent groups in Asia, agreed that a five-year ceasefire will become permanent and there will be no more fighting.

2004: Hardliners throw Iran’s legislative elections into crisis by disqualifying hundreds of liberal candidates, including more than 80 sitting lawmakers who are allied with the reformist President Mohammad Khatami.

2005: An anti-corruption judge places Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo’s sister under house arrest for masterminding the mass falsification of petition signatures to register his political party.

2006: Gunmen stormed an offshore oil platform run by Royal Dutch Shell in Nigeria and seized the workers, an American, a Briton, a Bulgarian and a Honduran. (The four were freed nearly three weeks later.)

2007: Bangladesh’s President Iajuddin Ahmed declares a state of emergency, steps down as interim leader of Bangladesh’s caretaker government and postpones the January 22 elections following violent protests by a key political alliance that said it would boycott the vote.

2008: Eleven US soldiers are convicted and five officers disciplined in the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal.

2009: Lawmakers, Muslim groups and the Pakistani public criticise Prince Harry after a British newspaper publishes video footage of him using offensive and racist language.

2010: Miep Gies, the Dutch office secretary who defied Nazi occupiers to hide Anne Frank and her family for two years and saved the teenager’s diary, died in Amsterdam at age 100.

2011: Alabama became the fourth state to withdraw from the Union, with delegates voting 61-39 in favour of an Ordinance of Secession during a convention in Montgomery.

On this date:

In 1908, President Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed the Grand Canyon National Monument (it became a national park in 1919).

In 1943, the United States and Britain signed treaties relinquishing extraterritorial rights in China.

One year ago: A federal judge in San Francisco began hearing arguments in a lawsuit aimed at overturning Proposition 8, California’s voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage. (Chief US District Judge Vaughn R Walker later overturned the ban; his ruling is currently under appeal.) Mark McGwire admitted to The Associated Press that he’d used steroids and human growth hormone when he broke baseball’s home run record in 1998.

Today’s Birthdays

Francesco Parmigianino, Italian artist (1504-1540); William James, US philosopher (1842-1910); Rod Taylor, Australian actor (1930-); Jean Chretien, former Canadian prime minister (1934-); Clarence Clemons, US saxophonist with rock group Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band (1942-); Kim Coles, US actress (1962-); Mary J Blige, US singer (1971-).

Actor Rod Taylor is 81. Composer Mary Rodgers is 80. The former prime minister of Canada, Jean Chretien (zhahn kray-tee-EHN’), is 77. Actor Mitchell Ryan is 77. Actor Felix Silla is 74. Rock musician Clarence Clemons is 69. Movie director Joel Zwick is 69. Country singer Naomi Judd is 65. World Golf Hall of Famer Ben Crenshaw is 59. Singer Robert Earl Keen is 55. Musician Vicki Peterson (The Bangles) is 53. Actress Kim Coles is 49. Rock musician Tom Dumont (No Doubt) is 43. Rhythm-and-blues singer Maxee Maxwell (Brownstone) is 42. Movie director Malcolm D Lee is 41. Singer Mary J Blige is 40. Musician Tom Rowlands (The Chemical Brothers) is 40. Actor Marc Blucas is 39. Actress Amanda Peet is 39. Actor Rockmond Dunbar is 38. Reality TV star Jason Wahler (TV: Laguna Beach; The Hills) is 24.