On This Day - March 11, 2026

Thanks to a pardon from out-going President Andrew Johnson, Dr. Samuel Mudd boards the steamer ship Liberty bound for his family in Maryland. He leaves behind his cell at Fort Jefferson located on an island of the Dry Tortugas off the Gulf Coast of Florida where he was imprisoned as a co-conspirator in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. John Wilkes Booth was the actual assassin.

President William Howard Taft is interred at Arlington National Cemetery. He's the first president and chief justice of the United States to be buried in the national cemetery. John F. Kennedy is the only other president buried there.

The Ethel Barrymore Theatre on Broadway in New York City debuts Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun. It's the first production written by an African American woman to be seen on Broadway.

World Health Organization Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus confirms the COVID-19 outbreak is a pandemic.