By: HISTORY.com Editors

St. Bernadette claims to see the Virgin Mary

Published: February 09, 2010Last Updated: May 27, 2025

In southern France, Marie-Bernarde Soubirous, a 14-year-old French peasant girl, first claims to have seen the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ and a central figure in the Roman Catholic religion. The apparitions, which totaled 18 before the end of the year, occurred in a grotto of a rock promontory near Lourdes, France. Marie explained that the Virgin Mary revealed herself as the Immaculate Conception, asked that a chapel be built on the site of the vision, and told the girl to drink from a fountain in the grotto, which Marie subsequently discovered by digging into the earth.

The concept of the Immaculate Conception, in which the Virgin Mary is regarded free from original sin from the moment of her conception, had been accepted just four years previous by Pope Pius IX. Marie’s claims garnered widespread attention, but skeptical church authorities subjected her to severe examinations and refused to accept her visions. After years of mistreatment at the hands of the authorities and the curious public, she was finally allowed to enter the convent of Notre-Dame de Nevers, where she spent her remaining years in prayer and seclusion. She died of ill heath at the age of 35.

The site of her manifestations subsequently became the most famous modern shrine of the Virgin Mary, and in 1933 Marie-Bernarde Soubirous was canonized as St. Bernadette by the Roman Catholic Church. Today, millions travel to Lourdes every year to visit St. Bernadette’s grotto, whose waters supposedly have curative powers.

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Timeline

Also on This Day in History

Discover more of the major events, famous births, notable deaths and everything else history-making that happened on February 11th

1778

Voltaire returns to Paris from exile

On February 11, 1778, some 300 people visit Voltaire following his return to Paris. Voltaire had been in exile for 28 years. Born Francois-Marie Arouet to middle-class parents in Paris in 1694, Voltaire began to study law as a young man but quit to become a playwright. He made a name for himself with classical […]

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1805

Sacagawea gives birth to her first child

Sacagawea, the Shoshone interpreter and guide to the Lewis and Clark expedition, gives birth to her first child, Jean Baptiste Charbonneau. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark first met the young Sacagawea while spending the winter among the Mandan tribe along the Upper Missouri River, not far from present-day Bismarck, North Dakota. Still only a teenager, […]

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1878

First US cycling club formed

On February 11, 1878, the Boston Bicycle Club, the first organization for recreational cyclists, is formed. The following year, a club is formed in Buffalo, followed by a club in New York in 1880. In the ensuing decades, as middle-class participation in cycling grows, hundreds of cycling clubs are formed across the United States. The Boston […]

1:34m read

1916

Women’s rights activist Emma Goldman is arrested

Emma Goldman, a crusader for women’s rights and social justice, is arrested in New York City for lecturing and distributing materials about birth control. She was accused of violating the Comstock Act of 1873, which made it a federal offense to disseminate contraceptive devices and information through the mail or across state lines. In addition […]

2:24m read

1945

Yalta Conference ends

On February 11, 1945, a week of intensive bargaining by the leaders of the three major Allied powers ends in Yalta, a Soviet resort town on the Black Sea. It was the second conference of the “Big Three” Allied leaders—U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin—and the […]

1960

The Payola scandal heats up

The Payola scandal reaches a new level of public prominence and legal gravity on February 11, 1960, when President Eisenhower called it an issue of public morality and the FCC proposed a new law making involvement in Payola a criminal act. What exactly was Payola? During the hearings conducted by Congressman Oren Harris (D-Arkansas) and […]

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1963

Julia Child’s “The French Chef” debuts

On February 11, 1963, Julia Child’s “The French Chef” debuts on public television in the U.S., introducing French cuisine to Americans and creating the cooking world’s first television star. The first episode kicks off with Child stirring the contents of a large steaming pot of boeuf bourguignon, intoning, “French beef stew in red wine… It’s […]

2:08m read

1970

Japan launches its first satellite

From the Kagoshima Space Center on the east coast of Japan’s Ohsumi Peninsula, Ohsumi, Japan’s first satellite, is successfully launched into an orbit around Earth. The achievement made Japan the world’s fourth space power, after the Soviet Union in 1957, the United States in 1958, and France in 1965. Two months after Japan’s launching of […]

0:40m read

1990

Nelson Mandela released from prison

South African leader Nelson Mandela is released from prison after serving 27 years.

2012

Pop superstar Whitney Houston dies at age 48

Whitney Houston, one of the world’s top-selling singers from the mid-1980s to late 1990s, is found dead in the bathtub of her suite at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California on February 11, 2012. Houston’s death was the result of accidental drowning; heart disease and cocaine, which was found in her system, were determined […]

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2020

World Health Organization officially names novel coronavirus disease COVID-19

A few months after the first known case was detected in Wuhan, China, and approximately three weeks after the first U.S. case was reported, on February 11, 2020, the World Health Organization officially named the illness that would go on to cause a pandemic “coronavirus disease 2019,” shortened to the acronym COVID-19. Often referred to […]

1:00m read

Religion

16 videos

Religion

The Shroud of Turin: 7 Intriguing Facts

The controversial Shroud of Turin, which may have covered Jesus’ body, first appeared in the 1350s and is now available for online viewing.

Religion

Why Did Pontius Pilate Have Jesus Crucified?

Historical accounts of Pontius Pilate, who sentenced Jesus to death, paint him as arrogant and cruel, but the Bible goes easier on him.

Religion

Shroud of Turin Isn’t Jesus’ Burial Cloth, Claims Forensic Study

The Shroud of Turin, a linen cloth bearing a man's image, is claimed to be the burial shroud of Jesus, though scientists refute that claim.

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