March 11:
1942: Under orders from Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Gen. Douglas MacArthur left Corregidor in the Philippines to avoid capture by the advancing Japanese forces.
1918: First cases of the Spanish flu were reported. This would become a pandemic killing more than WWI which was in its last year.
1985: The Soviet leadership chose Mikhail Gorbachev to succeed the recently deceased Konstantin Chernenko.
1997: Paul McCartney was knighted.
2004: Islamofascist terrorists exploded 10 bombs on four trains in Madrid area train stations during rush hour.
2011: A 9.0 undersea earthquake struck off the coast of Japan, the most powerful recorded quake in Japanese history, moving Honshu, Japan's largest island, 8 feet to the east. This caused powerful tsunami waves, some of which may have been as high as 133 feet. The death toll may have been as high as 18,000. In addition, the tsunami caused meltdowns at 3 reactors in the F u kushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Needless to say, it was a huge disaster.