What Happened Today in History on August 11

The mythical start date of the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar. A a non-repeating base-20 and base-18 calendar used by several pre-Columbian Mesoamerican cultures, most notably the Maya. The Long Count calendar identifies a day by counting the number of days passed since the mythical creation date of August 11, 3114 BCE in the proleptic Gregorian calendar or September 6 on the Julian calendar. The Long Count calendar was widely used on monuments. More

Germany's Weimar constitution was passed by the National Assembly. The design of a new Democratic constitution began in late 1918, following the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II and the collapse of the monarchy. The Weimar Republic, Germany's 12-year experiment with democracy, came to an end 12 years later when the Nazis came to power in January 1933 and established a dictatorship. More

The first batch of 137 prisoners arrives at Alcatraz, arriving by railroad from the United States Penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas, to Santa Venetia, California. In 1850, a presidential order set aside the island for possible use as a United States military reservation and the U.S. Army had used the island for more than 80 years. In 1933, the island was transferred to the U.S. Department of Justice for use by the Federal Bureau of Prisons to open a maximum-security, minimum-privilege penitentiary to deal with the most incorrigible inmates in Federal prisons. More

Hollywood actress Hedy Lamarr and composer George Antheil were awarded a patent for a “frequency hopping, spread-spectrum communication system” designed to make radio-guided torpedoes harder to detect or jam. Lamarr and Antheil donated their patent to the US Navy and never realized any money from their invention. Expand +

Hussein was proclaimed king of Jordan succeeding to the throne three months before his 17th birthday. A three-man regency council made up of the prime minister and heads of the Senate and the House of Representatives was appointed until he became 18. He was enthroned on 2 May 1953, the same day that his cousin Faisal II assumed his constitutional powers as king of Iraq. More

Chad, officially the Republic of Chad's Independence day. Effective date of the agreement with France signed on 12 July. Chad, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of North and Central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to the north, Sudan to the east, the Central African Republic to the south, Cameroon to the southwest, Nigeria to the southwest (at Lake Chad), and Niger to the west.  Expand +

Six days of riots began in the Watts area of Los Angeles, triggered by an incident between a white member of the California Highway Patrol and an African American motorist. Thirty-four deaths were reported and more than 3,000 people arrested. Damage to property was estimated at $40 million.