Today in History: Singapore was granted self-government by Britain

The following are some of the major events to have occurred on April 11:

1951 – President Harry S Truman stripped General Douglas MacArthur of all his posts including that of U.N. Forces Commander in Korea for making critical political statements.

1957 – Singapore was granted self-government by Britain.

2000 – South African cricket captain Hansie Cronje admitted taking money from an Indian bookmaker.

2001 – The Welsh comedian and singer Harry Secombe died.

2002 – A truck bomb near the ancient El Ghriba synagogue on the Tunisian island of Djerba killed 21 people including 14 Germans.

2003 – U.S. and Kurdish forces took Iraq’s third city of Mosul without a fight, sealing victory in the north.

2004 – Pope John Paul II made an unexpected appeal for Christian unity as the Western (Roman Catholic) and Eastern (Orthodox) churches unusually celebrated Easter on the same day.

2006 – Bernardo Provenzano, the undisputed head of the Sicilian Mafia who had been on the run for more than four decades, was arrested in Sicily.

2007 – Suicide car bombing in Algiers kills at least 17 people.

2009 – Rene Monory, a self-made man proud of his climb from a first job as a rural garage owner to that of government minister and then president of the French Senate, died.

(Reuters)