Template:On this day - May 11

Salvador Dalí

• 1544 – The expedition of Francisco de Orellana, the first to explore the Amazon River in South America, sets out from Sanlúcar de Barrameda (in Cádiz, Spain).
• 1547 – Death of Francisco de los Cobos y Molina, Contador Mayor of Castile and León, Secretary of State of Emperor Charles I (b. 1477).
• 1570 – Death of Alonso de Covarrubias, architect and sculptor of the Spanish High Renaissance (b. 1486).
• 1706 – Death of Juan de Ovando, Spanish writer and poet (b. 1624).
• 1780 – Death of Nicolás Fernández de Moratín, Spanish poet, prose writer and playwright (b. 1737).
• 1813 – In Argentina, the Assembly of the Year XIII approves the creation of the National Anthem.
• 1867 – By the Treaty of London Luxembourg obtains independence from Belgium and the Netherlands, although it had to guarantee its neutrality by destroying the defensive fortifications built largely during the Spanish rule, a task that would take sixteen years and cost 1.5 million gold francs.
• 1871 – Birth of Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo, Spanish painter, inventor, engraver, photographer, textile designer, fashion designer, businessman and set designer (d. 1949).
• 1904 – Birth of Salvador Dalí, Spanish painter, sculptor, engraver, set designer and writer, considered one of the greatest representatives of surrealism (d. 1989).
• 1916 – Birth of Camilo José Cela, Spanish writer, Prince of Asturias Award for Literature in 1987, Nobel Prize in Literature in 1989 and Cervantes Prize in 1995 (d. 2002).
• 1927 – Death of Juan Gris, Spanish Cubist painter, illustrator and lithographer, considered one of the masters of cubism (b. 1887).
• 1931 – In Madrid (Spain) a wave of violence against the Catholic Church begins, resulting in the burning of more than a hundred religious buildings.
• 1960 – In the town of Bancalari, in the north of Greater Buenos Aires (Argentina), agents of the Israeli secret service (Mossad) kidnap the Austro-German war criminal Adolf Eichmann, who was living there incognito, to take him to Israel, where he will be tried and executed.
• 1974 – In Buenos Aires, the religious, teacher and social activist Father Mugica is shot dead, a crime attributed to the para-police organization Argentine Anticommunist Alliance (Triple A).
• 1992 – The station Colorín ColorRadio of the radio network Caracol Radio, the first and only one devoted to children, is launched in Colombia.
• 2003 – Death of José Manuel Lara, Spanish publisher, founder of Editorial Planeta (b. 1914).
• 2009 – Death of Claudio Huepe, Chilean industrial civil engineer, economist and politician (b. 1939).