From Historynet: Today in History January 11

49 BC          Julius Caesar  leads his army across the Rubicon River, plunging Rome into civil war.

1843          Francis Scott Key , author of "The Star-Spangled Banner," dies in Baltimore.

1861          Alabama secedes from the Union.

1862          Lincoln  accepts 

Simon Cameron's  resignation as Secretary of War.

1887          At Fort Smith, Arkansas, hangman 

George Maledon  dispatches four victims in a multiple hanging.

1904          British troops massacre 1,000 dervishes in Somaliland.

1916          Russian General Yudenich  launches a WWI winter offensive and advances west.

1923          The French enter the town of Essen in the Ruhr valley, to extract Germany's resources as war payment.

1934          The German police raid the homes of dissident clergy in Berlin.

1941          Adolf Hitler orders forces to be prepared to enter North Africa to assist the Italian effort, marking the establishment of the Afrika Korps.

1940          Benjamin O. Davis, Sr. , becomes the U.S. Army's first black general, his son would later become a general as well.

1942          Japan invades the Dutch East Indies at Borneo.

1943          The Soviet Red Army encircles Stalingrad.

1948          President Harry S. Truman  proposes free, two-year community colleges for all who want an education.

1949          Negotiations in China between the Nationalists and Communists open as Tientsin is virtually lost to the Communists.

1964          A collection of previously unexhibited paintings by Pablo Picasso are displayed for the first time in Toronto.

1980          Honda announces it will build the first Japanese-owned passenger-car assembly plant in the United States--in Ohio.

1994          The Irish Government announces an end to a 15-year ban on broadcasting by the IRA and its political branch, Sinn Fein.

2003          Illinois Gov. George Ryan  commutes the death sentences of 167 prisoners on the state's death row in the wake of allegations that Chicago police detective and commander Jon Burge tortured confessions from some 200 suspects over a 19 year period.