Britannicus, Roman son of Claudius (born 41)

AD 55 (LV) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Caesar and Vetus. The denomination AD 55 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.

Tiberius Claudius Caesar Britannicus, usually called Britannicus, was the son of Roman Emperor Claudius and his third wife, Valeria Messalina. For a time, he was considered his father's heir, but that changed after his mother's downfall in 48, when it was revealed she had engaged in a bigamous marriage without Claudius' knowledge. The next year, his father married Agrippina the Younger, Claudius' fourth and final marriage. Their marriage was followed by the adoption of Agrippina's son, Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, whose name became Nero as a result. His stepbrother would later be married to Britannicus' sister Octavia and soon eclipsed him as Claudius' heir. After his father's death in October 54, Nero became emperor. The sudden death of Britannicus shortly before his fourteenth birthday is reported by all extant sources as being the result of poisoning on Nero's orders; as Claudius' biological son, he represented a threat to Nero's claim to the throne. In Suetonius' The Twelve Caesars, he claims that Nero poisoned Britannicus out of envy of his voice, due to Nero's own obsession with performance and being the best entertainer of all time.

Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, or Claudius, was a Roman emperor, ruling from AD 41 to 54. A member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, Claudius was born to Drusus and Antonia Minor at Lugdunum in Roman Gaul, where his father was stationed as a military legate. He was the first Roman emperor to be born outside Italy.

February 11 is the 42nd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar; 323 days remain until the end of the year.