Reuters historical calendar - August 11

London, Aug 10 (Reuters) Following are some of the major events to have occurred on August 11 in history: 1919 - Scottish-born American industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie died at 83.

1952 - King Hussein of Jordan took the throne after his father, King Talal, was declared unfit to rule because of mental illness.

1956 - U.S. painter Jackson Pollock, leader of the abstract expressionist movement, was killed in a car accident. He introduced the technique of pouring paint onto canvas.

1960 - Chad gained independence from France.

1966 - A treaty to end three years of hostilities between Malaysia and Indonesia was signed in Jakarta.

1969 - Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda announced the nationalisation of copper mining companies.

1990 - West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher's Free Democrats merged with their liberal East German allies to become the first revived pan-German political party.

1994 - Russia's Supreme Court acquitted General Valentin Varennikov of high treason for joining those trying to overthrow Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in an August 1991 coup attempt.

1996 - Czech conductor Rafael Kubelik died aged 82.

1998 - British Petroleum stunned markets by announcing it had agreed to merge with Amoco of the United States in a 0 billion deal.

2000 - The Bank of Japan raised interest rates for the first time in 10 years, rejecting an unprecedented request from the government for a delay.

2002 - Azerbaijan's breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh voted for a new leader, defying the world community and brushing off angry protests from Baku. Arkady Gukasyan resoundingly won a new five-year term.

2002 - US Airways Group Inc., the sixth-largest U.S. airline, sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, in the first bankruptcy filing by a major air carrier since the Sept. 11 attacks.

2003 - In Afghanistan, NATO took command of Kabul's peacekeeping force, its first operation outside Europe.

2003 - Under pressure from the United States, Liberian President Charles Taylor stepped down and was succeeded by Vice President Moses Blah. Taylor travelled into asylum in Nigeria.

**2005 - Europe's Ariane-5 rocket launched the world's largest communications satellite, placing the 6.5-tonne (14,500 lb) iPSTAR in orbit for Thailand's Shin Satellite.

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