December 11

1719 – First recorded sighting of the Aurora Borealis in New England, United States. It caused considerable alarm, with reports claiming that a mysterious face seemed to appear in the atmosphere.
1997 – More than 150 countries agreed at a global warming conference to control the Earth's greenhouse gases.
1998 – Scientists announce in the journal Science that they have successfully deciphered the entire genetic blueprint of an animal: the tiny nematode worm, Caenorhabditis elegans. This is the first time genetic instructions have been spelt out for an animal that, like humans, has a nervous system, digests food, and has sex.
1998 – The 'Mars Climate Orbiter' was successfully launched, but disappeared on September 23, 1999, apparently destroyed because scientists had failed to convert English measures to metric values.