January 11, 1981 (Sunday)
- Iran hostage crisis: Iran dropped a demand that the United States deposit 24 billion dollars in gold into an Algerian bank as a condition of the release of 52 U.S. Embassy workers being held hostage in Tehran, settling instead for the release of the nearly 8 billion dollars of Iranian assets that had been frozen in American banks.
- Born: Jamelia, British singer, as Jamelia Niela Davis in Smethwick, West Midlands
- Died: Beulah Bondi, 92, American actress (Ma Bailey in It's a Wonderful Life)
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