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A bit of March 11th history…
1669 - Mt Etna in Sicily erupts in its largest recoreded eruption, killing 15,000
1855 - Bowery Boys gang leader William Poole, aka “Bill the Butcher”, is buried in Brooklyn with 155 carriages and 6000 mourners (pictured)
1869 - The west 1st learns of the giant panda via French missionary Armond David who receives a skin from a hunter
1918 - US Army mess cook, Private Albert Gitchell, becomes 1st documented case of Spanish flu; start of worldwide pandemic killing 50 -100 million
2011 - 9.0 magnitude earthquake strikes Japan, triggering a tsunami killing thousands and causing the 2nd worst nuclear accident in history at Fukushima nuclear plant
2018 - China National People’s Congress approves removal of term limits for a leader, will allow Xi Jinping presidency for life
2020 - COVID-19 declared a pandemic by WHO, with 124,564 cases worldwide and 4373 deaths
Today in History: March 11th