On This Day (December 11)

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1282 – Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, the last independent Prince of Wales to rule in Wales, was killed in an ambush.
1602 – Geneva successfully repelled a late night attack by the combined forces of Duke Charles Emmanuel of Savoy and King Philip III of Spain (pictured), an event commemorated annually during the Fête de l'Escalade.

Phillip III of Spain

1803 - Hector Berlioz, French composer born. (d. 1869) (Béatrice et Bénédict - Listen)
1918 - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Russian writer, Nobel laureate born.
1931 – The British Parliament enacted the Statute of Westminster, giving complete legislative independence to the Irish Free State, Newfoundland, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa.
1941 - World War II: Germany and Italy declare war on the United States.
1946 – The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) was established to provide emergency food and health care to children in countries that had been devastated by World War II.
1994 – First Chechen War: Russian forces entered into the breakaway Russian republic of Chechnya to control the secessionist movement.
2005 - Cronulla riots: Thousands of White Australians demonstrate against ethnic violence resulting in a riot against anyone thought to be Lebanese (and many who were not) in Cronulla Sydney. These are followed up by ethnic attacks on Cronulla.