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Today in History, January 11th

On January 11, 1922, Leonard Thompson became the first person given insulin. Plus the 1964 smoking report and Earhart's Hawaii flight.

By Today in History Updated November 10, 2026 2 min read Sources checked

Published January 11, 2026 · Last updated November 10, 2026

January 11 is best known as the day a 14-year-old Canadian boy became the first person treated with insulin in 1922, turning diabetes from a death sentence into a manageable disease. The date also saw the U.S. Surgeon General link smoking to cancer in 1964 and Amelia Earhart fly solo from Hawaii to California in 1935.

The big story: The First Insulin Injection (1922)

Before insulin, type 1 diabetes was usually fatal, and doctors had little to offer but starvation diets. Leonard Thompson, 14, was close to the end. He weighed about 65 pounds and drifted in and out of a diabetic coma in Toronto. In the summer of 1921, Frederick Banting and Charles Best, working at the University of Toronto with backing from J.J.R. Macleod, had isolated insulin from animal pancreases. On January 11, 1922, Thompson became the first human to receive it. The first dose helped, but the extract was impure and he had an allergic reaction. Biochemist J.B. Collip then refined the formula, and when Thompson got a second injection on January 23, his blood sugar steadied without side effects. Word spread fast, and so did insulin. Banting and Macleod shared the 1923 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Diabetes still had no cure, but it no longer had to be fatal.

More events on January 11

Year	What happened
1879	British troops invaded Zululand in southern Africa, beginning the Anglo-Zulu War.
1908	President Theodore Roosevelt declared Arizona’s Grand Canyon a national monument.
1935	Amelia Earhart flew solo from Honolulu to Oakland, about 2,400 miles in 18 hours, the first such flight.
1964	U.S. Surgeon General Luther Terry released a report linking cigarette smoking to lung cancer.
1971	The term “Silicon Valley” first appeared in print, in the trade paper Electronic News.
1973	Baseball owners voted to let American League teams use a designated hitter in place of the pitcher.
1989	President Ronald Reagan delivered his farewell address to the nation after eight years in office.
2008	Sir Edmund Hillary, who with Tenzing Norgay made the first ascent of Mount Everest, died in Auckland, New Zealand, at 88.
2010	Miep Gies, the last survivor of the group that helped hide Anne Frank’s family, died in the Netherlands at 100.
2014	Former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon died near Tel Aviv, eight years after a stroke left him incapacitated.

Born on January 11

1842: William James, philosopher and psychologist who led the pragmatist movement.
1885: Alice Paul, suffragist who first proposed the Equal Rights Amendment.
1971: Mary J. Blige, singer-songwriter and actress.