History Timeline: March 11
1845 700 Maoris led by their chief, Hone-Heke, burn the small town of Kororareka in protest at the settlement of Maoriland by Europeans, in breach with the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi.
1888 Blizzard takes the lives of over 400 people in the Northeastern United States
1908 Orchestra Leader and TV personality Lawrence Welk born
1969 Levi-Strauss begins to sell bell-bottomed jeans.
1985 Mikhail Gorbachev is named the new Soviet leader.
1990 Lithuania declares its independence from the Soviet Union.