This Day in History: February 11th

Here’s a brief look back in time on this day, February 11th.

In 1878, cycling starts rolling its way into the mainstream as the Boston Bicycle Club organizes. The bicycle undertook many forms before becoming a reality in the early 1800s by European inventors. Cycles wouldn’t become common until the late 1800s when popularity explodes in part due to cycling clubs that formed immediately after Boston’s debut.

In 1945, an international conference held between ‘The Big Three’ concludes in Yalta, a resort city located in the Crimean peninsula. The leaders, 32nd U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt; former British prime minister Winston Churchill; and former Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, discussed post-war plans as the Third Reich retreats back to Berlin. Groundwork for the establishment of the United Nations charter were also proposed. Germany would formally surrender 3 months later after the death of its leader, Adolf Hitler.

In 1990, South African anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela is freed from prison following 27 years of incarceration for charges of treason and sabotage. The charges were stemmed from the lawyer’s activism against the apartheid (“apartness” in Afrikaans) system, which institutionalized racial segregation: deeming white as the superior race. Prohibition on interracial marriage; limits on job and housing opportunities; and forced relocations were some of the polices enacted against nonwhite residents by the National Party. Later, protests against such policies organized by nonwhites were deemed illegal. Mandela was freed upon the request of then-president F.W. de Klerk, who began working on dismantling apartheid upon his parliamentary election in 1989. Mandela himself would be elected president in 1994, becoming South Africa’s first Black and democratically elected official.