Alexander the Great, the young Macedonian military genius who forged an empire stretching from the eastern Mediterranean to India, dies in Babylon, in present-day Iraq, at the age of 32.

On June 11, 1776, the Continental Congress selects Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, John Adams of Massachusetts, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Roger Sherman of Connecticut and Robert R. Livingston of New York to draft a declaration of independence. They have come to be known as the Committee of Five.

On June 11, 1949, country singer Hank Williams Sr., takes to the microphone of the Grand Ole Opry radio broadcast for the first time. That debut remains one of the most famous in the history of the legendary live country-music performance program. He electrified a live audience at Ryman Auditorium that called Williams out for six encores and had to be implored not to call him out for more in order to allow the rest of the show to go on.

On June 11, 1955, a racing car in Le Mans, France, goes out of control and crashes into stands filled with spectators, killing 83 people, including the driver, Frenchman Pierre Levegh. The tragedy in the famous 24-hour endurance race led to a ban on racing in several nations.

Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc publicly burns himself to death in a plea for President Ngo Dinh Diem to show “charity and compassion” to all religions. Diem, a Catholic who had been oppressing the Buddhist majority, remained stubborn despite continued Buddhist protests and repeated U.S. requests to liberalize his government’s policies. More Buddhist monks immolated themselves during ensuing weeks. Madame Nhu, the president’s sister-in-law, referred to the burnings as “barbecues” and offered to supply matches. In November 1963, South Vietnamese military officers assassinated Diem and his brother during a coup.

Then 34-year-old director Steven Spielberg reportedly drew on his own experiences as an unusually imaginative, often-lonely child of divorce for his science-fiction classic E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, which is released on June 11, 1982.

In the wake of the Tiananmen Square Massacre on June 4, China issues a warrant for a leading Chinese dissident who had taken refuge in the U.S. embassy in Beijing. The diplomatic standoff lasted for a year, and the refusal of the United States to hand the dissident over to Chinese officials was further evidence of American disapproval of China’s crackdown on political protesters.