Watts Rebellion begins

While hunting for elk along the Missouri River, Meriwether Lewis is shot in the thigh, probably by one of his own men.

Confederate General Jubal Early pulls out of Winchester, Virginia, as Union General Philip Sheridan approaches the city. Wary of his new foe, Early moved away to avoid an immediate conflict.

On August 11, 1919, Friedrich Ebert, a member of the Social Democratic Party and the provisional president of the German Reichstag (government), signs a new constitution, known as the Weimar Constitution, into law, officially creating the first parliamentary democracy in Germany.

A group of federal prisoners classified as “most dangerous” arrives at Alcatraz Island, a 22-acre rocky outcrop situated 1.5 miles offshore in San Francisco Bay, on August 11, 1934. The convicts—the first civilian prisoners to be housed in the new high-security penitentiary—joined a few dozen military prisoners left over from the island’s days as a U.S. military prison.

On August 11, 1943, German forces begin a six-day evacuation of the Italian island of Sicily, having been beaten back by the Allies, who invaded the island in July.

Prince Hussein is proclaimed the king of Jordan after his father, King Talal, is declared unfit to rule by the Jordanian Parliament on grounds of mental illness. Hussein was formally crowned on November 14, 1953, his 18th birthday. Hussein was the third constitutional king of Jordan and a member of the Hashemite dynasty, said to be in direct line of descent from the Prophet Muhammad.

In the predominantly Black Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, racial tension reaches a breaking point after two white policemen scuffle with a Black motorist suspected of drunken driving. A crowd of spectators gathered near the corner of Avalon Boulevard and 116th Street to watch the arrest and soon grew angry by what they believed to be yet another incident of racially motivated abuse by the police.

The last U.S. ground combat unit in South Vietnam, the Third Battalion, Twenty-First Infantry, is deactivated and begins departing for the United States. The unit had been guarding the U.S. air base at Da Nang. This left only 43,500 advisors, airmen, and support troops left in-country. This number did not include the sailors of the Seventh Fleet on station in the South China Sea or the air force personnel in Thailand and Guam.

On August 11, 1973, at a back-to-school party for teenagers in the recreation room of an apartment building in the west Bronx, New York City hip hop is born. Like any style of music, hip hop has roots in other forms, and its evolution has been shaped by many different artists. But there's a strong case to be made that it came to life precisely at this event, in a community room at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue. The man who presided over that historic party was the party giver's brother, Clive Campbell—better known to history as DJ Kool Herc, founding father of hip hop.

On August 11, 1973, the nostalgic teenage coming-of-age movie American Graffiti, directed and co-written by George Lucas, opens in theaters across the United States. Set in California in the summer of 1962, American Graffiti was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Director and Best Picture, and helped launch the big-screen careers of Richard Dreyfuss and Harrison Ford, as well as the former child actor and future Oscar-winning filmmaker Ron Howard. The film’s success enabled Lucas to get his next movie made, the mega-hit Star Wars (1977).

Nurse Carol Bundy confesses her connection to the “Sunset Slayer,” the killer who had been murdering and mutilating young women in Hollywood, California, all summer, to co-workers. “I can’t take it anymore. I’m supposed to save lives, not take them,” she reportedly said. Her confession was relayed to police, who immediately arrested Douglas Clark, Bundy’s live-in lover.

On August 11, 1984, President Ronald Reagan makes a joking but controversial off-the-cuff remark about bombing Russia while testing a microphone before a scheduled radio address. While warming up for the speech, Reagan said “My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you today that I’ve signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.”

Robin Williams, the prolific Oscar-winning actor and comedian, dies by suicide on August 11, 2014. He was 63.