Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/February 11
February 11: National Foundation Day in Japan.
- 1808 – Anthracite coal (pictured) was first experimentally burned as a residential heating fuel by Jesse Fell in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, USA.
- 1858 – Fourteen-year old peasant girl Bernadette Soubirous reported the first of eighteen Marian apparitions in Lourdes, France, resulting in the town becoming a major site for pilgrimages by Catholics.
- 1929 – To settle the "Roman Question", Italy and the Holy See of the Roman Catholic Church signed the first Lateran Treaty, establishing Vatican City as an independent sovereign enclave within Italy.
- 1979 – During the Iranian Revolution, the Pahlavi dynasty in Iran collapsed when the military declared itself "neutral" after rebel troops overwhelmed forces loyal to Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in armed street fighting.
- 1990 – Anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela, a political prisoner for 27 years, was released from Victor Verster Prison near Paarl, South Africa.
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