Today in History - February 11 | Downward spiral of pop superstar takes tragic turn
Pop superstar Whitney Houston was found dead inside her room at a hotel in California on February 11, 2012. She was aged 48.
Police and fire officials were summoned to Houston's room after she is discovered unconscious in the room's bathtub.
Houston was one of the best-selling artists of the 1980s and 1990s, with hit singles such as Saving All My Love for You, How Will I Know" and The Greatest Love of All. She also starred with Kevin Costner in the hit film The Bodyguard.
But by the late 1990s, reports of Houston's struggles with drug addiction, health problems and her rocky marriage with Bobby Brown begin to surface.
In the days leading up to her death, Houston was seen ordering large amounts of alcohol at the Beverly Hills hotel.
A coroner found the cause of her death was death was the result of accidental drowning Heart disease and cocaine, which was found in her system, were contributing factors
On February 11, 1956, British diplomats Guy Burgess, shown here, and Donald Maclean who had vanished five years before reappeared in Soviet Russia.
They issued a statement to international journalists in Moscow denying they had ever been Russian spies.
But it later emerged the pair were part of the Cambridge spy ring, recruited by Russian intelligence while studying at the famous British university.
The network included, clockwise from top left, Anthony Blunt, Guy Burgess (who died in Moscow in 1963), Donald MacLean and Kim Philby, who tipped off Burgess and MacLean in 1951 forcing them to defect and then defecting himself in 1963.
In one of sport's greatest upsets, on February 11, 1990, rank outsider Buster Douglas defeated champion Mike Tyson in their world heavyweight boxing title fight in Tokyo.
Douglas, the 42-1 underdog, knocked down Tyson in the tenth round before the referee counted him out.
The World Health Organisation on February 11, 2020, officially named the illness that would go on to cause a global pandemic by the acronym COVID-19.
The virus quickly became a global health emergency There were 763 million global cases and nearly 7 million deaths by April 2023.
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