On this day in history - Today, March, 11

Today in History

• 1851 Giuseppe Verdi's opera, Rigoletto, receives its premiere

  Rigoletto is one of the most popular operas of all time. The piece was premiered at the Teatro La Fe

• 1990 Patricio Aylwin becomes Chile's first democratically elected president since the end of Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship

  Pinochet had been in power since a CIA-backed coup d'état in 1973. Under his command, thousands of p

• 1990 Lithuania becomes the first Soviet republic to declare its independence

  The Baltic country's secession marked an important step in the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

• 2004 191 people die as several bombs explode on Madrid commuter trains

  The bombings were conducted by an Islamist terrorist cell and came 3 days before Spain's general ele

• 2011 The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster strikes Japan

  The nuclear meltdowns occurred after a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami. It was the w