Today in History: March 11, massive earthquake and tsunami in Japan kill nearly 20,000
Today is Wednesday, March 11, the 70th day of 2026. There are 295 days left in the year.
Today in history:
On March 11, 2011, a magnitude 9 earthquake and resulting tsunami struck Japan’s northeastern coast, killing nearly 20,000 people and severely damaging the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station.
Also on this date:
In 1918, what were believed to be the first confirmed U.S. cases of a deadly global flu pandemic were reported among U.S. Army soldiers stationed at Fort Riley, Kansas; 46 soldiers would die. (The influenza outbreak would ultimately kill an estimated 20 million to 40 million people worldwide.)
In 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Lend-Lease Act, which provided war supplies to Allied countries during World War II.
In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev was chosen to succeed the late Konstantin Chernenko as general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party.
In 2004, three days before general elections in Spain, 10 bombs exploded in quick succession inside commuter trains in Madrid, killing 193 people in an attack linked to al-Qaida-inspired militants.
In 2006, former Serb leader Slobodan Milošević was found dead at age 64 of a heart attack in his prison cell in the Netherlands, abruptly ending his four-year U.N. war crimes trial.
In 2010, a federal appeals court in San Francisco upheld the use of the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance and “In God We Trust” on U.S. currency.
In 2012, U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales shot and killed 16 Afghan villagers — mostly women and children — as they slept. (Bales later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison without parole.)
In 2021, President Joe Biden signed into law a $1.9 trillion COVID relief package that...