Today in History....June 11

On this day in …

* 1770, Capt. James Cook, commander of the British ship Endeavour, discovered the Great Barrier Reef off Australia by running onto it.

However, if you read Gain Menzie's book "1421, The Year China Discovered the World", he uncovers that China had discovered Australia many centuries prior to James Cook, who by the way, says he is probably the greatest sailor/ocean navigator ever.

Also, he says the Chinese, under command of Zheng He and other famed eunuch commanders, landed on the shores of North America, the Caribbean, South America, Greenland, North and South Poles some 70 years prior to Christopher Columbus.

It's a good book, exciting, full of history and if true, time to re-write history!

* 1776, the Continental Congress formed a committee to draft a Declaration of Independence calling for freedom from Britain

* 1947, the government announced the end of household and institutional sugar rationing, to take effect the next day

* 1970, the United States presence in Libya came to an end as the last detachment left Wheelus Air Base

* 1977, a 20-day hostage drama in the Netherlands ended as Dutch marines stormed a train and a school held by South Moluccan extremists. Six gunmen and two hostages on the train were killed

* 1985, Karen Ann Quinlan, the comatose patient whose case prompted a historic right-to-die court decision, died in Morris Plains, N.J., at age 31

* 2001, Timothy McVeigh was executed by injection at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Ind., for the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people

* 2002, congressional investigators released a report which said Clinton administration workers had defaced equipment and left behind prank messages as they departed the White House in January 2001

* 2006, Al-Qaida in Iraq vowed "major attacks" after the death of leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in a U.S. airstrike