What happened on 11 March?

13 events from the Ever-When timeline, ranked by how much they mattered.

1. 1985 Gorbachev's leadership of the Soviet Union Glasnost, perestroika, the end of the Cold War and — not by design — the dissolution of the state he led.
2. 2011 Tohoku earthquake and Fukushima disaster M9 megathrust quake and tsunami; meltdowns at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
3. 1985 Gorbachev becomes Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev takes power and launches the reforms of glasnost and perestroika.
4. 2020 WHO declares COVID-19 a pandemic The World Health Organization characterises COVID-19 as a pandemic; many countries impose lockdowns and emergency measures in the weeks that follow.
5. 1793 Vendée rebellion Royalist Catholic uprising in western France, brutally suppressed by the Revolution.
6. 1990 Lithuania declares independence First Soviet republic to formally declare independence from the USSR.
7. 1851 Verdi's Rigoletto premieres Tragic opera with the aria 'La donna e mobile'.
8. 1941 Lend-Lease Act US arms its allies before formally entering World War II.
9. 2004 Madrid train bombings Islamist terrorist attack on commuter trains kills 193 in Spain.
10. 1916 Born: Harold Wilson Labour Prime Minister of the 1960s and 1970s, presiding over devaluation and Britain in Europe.
11. 1829 Mendelssohn revives Bach's St Matthew Passion The 20-year-old Mendelssohn conducts the first performance of the Passion since Bach's death at the Berlin Singakademie, launching the nineteenth-century Bach revival.
12. 2018 China abolishes presidential term limits The National People's Congress votes 2,958 to 2 to remove the two-term limit on the presidency, allowing Xi to rule indefinitely.
13. 1708 Anne vetoes the Scottish Militia Bill Fearing a Scottish militia might be turned against the new Union during a Jacobite invasion scare, Queen Anne withholds royal assent — the last time a British monarch has vetoed a