Today In History

Human history has been marked with events and activities that were too important to be forgotten or not written down. All of these were documented for future purposes, such as for your educational purpose. Irrespective of what kind of events they were; be they natural disasters, political actions, scientific inventions or anything at all, one thing that greatly differentiated us humans from animals is that ability to conceptualize our existence and pass that down to our offspring and future generations through documentations.
To ensure you learn a thing or two about previous event in our history, we’ve collated the largest collection of documented historical events all put in one place and accessible according to the day you are reading this content. For this reason, the large collection of daily historical events is known as Today In History. Alternatively, you could refer to it as ‘On This Day In History Funny Events’ if you are strictly looking for funny events that happened on this day in history.
The following Today In History Funny events are displayed according to whatever day you’re reading this content, it’ll only display events that happened on this specific day and month for several years behind.
On This Day In History
Events in history today, 11 of Jul
Procopius Anthemius was the Western Roman emperor from 467 to 472. Born in the Eastern Roman Empire, Anthemius quickly worked his way up the ranks. He married into the Theodosian dynasty through Marcia Euphemia, daughter of Eastern emperor Marcian. He soon received a significant number of promotions to various posts, and was presumed to be Marcian's planned successor. However, Marcian's sudden death in 457, together with that of Western emperor Avitus, left the imperial succession in the hands of Aspar. He instead appointed Leo, a low-ranking officer, to the Eastern throne, probably out of fear that Anthemius would be too independent. Eventually, this same Leo designated Anthemius as Western emperor in 467, following a two-year interregnum that started in November 465.
After being besieged in Rome by his own generals, Western Roman Emperor Anthemius is captured in St. Peter's Basilica and put to death.
Michael I Rangabe was Byzantine emperor from 811 to 813. A courtier of Emperor Nikephoros I, he survived the disastrous campaign against the Bulgars and was preferred as imperial successor over Staurakios, who was severely injured. He was proclaimed emperor by Patriarch Nicephorus I of Constantinople on 2 October 811.
Byzantine emperor Michael I, under threat by conspiracies, abdicates in favor of his general Leo the Armenian, and becomes a monk (under the name Athanasius).
The treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte (911) is the foundational treaty of the Duchy of Normandy, establishing Rollo, a Norse warlord and Viking leader, as the first Duke of Normandy in exchange for his loyalty to Charles III, the king of West Francia, following the Siege of Chartres. This treaty included a land grant of farmable coastal land from Charles to Rollo in return for Rollo's fealty and help against other Viking groups that had been regularly raiding the northern coastline. This treaty effectively changed how mainland Europe resolved ongoing raids from the Vikings.
Signing of the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte between Charles the Simple and Rollo of Normandy.
Baldwin IV may refer to:Baldwin IV of Flanders (980–1035), count of Flanders from 987 to 1035 Baldwin IV of Hainaut (1108–1171), count of Hainaut from 1120 to 1171 Baldwin IV of Jerusalem (1161–1185), king of Jerusalem from 1174 until 1185 Wade Baldwin IV, American professional basketball player
Baldwin IV, 13, becomes King of Jerusalem, with Raymond III, Count of Tripoli as regent and William of Tyre as chancellor.
The Battle of the Golden Spurs or 1302 Battle of Courtrai was a military confrontation between the royal army of France and rebellious forces of the County of Flanders on 11 July 1302 during the 1297–1305 Franco-Flemish War. It took place near the town of Kortrijk in modern-day Belgium and resulted in an unexpected victory for the Flemish.
Battle of the Golden Spurs (Guldensporenslag in Dutch): A coalition around the Flemish cities defeats the king of France's royal army.
Charles IV was Holy Roman Emperor from 1355 until his death in 1378. He was elected King of Germany in 1346 and became King of Bohemia that same year. He was a member of the House of Luxembourg from his father's side and the Bohemian House of Přemyslid from his mother's side; he emphasized the latter due to his lifelong affinity for the Bohemian side of his inheritance, and also because his direct ancestors in the Přemyslid line included two saints.
Charles IV, Count of Luxembourg and King of Bohemia, is elected King of the Romans.
The Ming dynasty, officially the Great Ming, was an imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming was the last imperial dynasty of China ruled by the Han people, the majority ethnic group in China. Although the primary capital of Beijing fell in 1644 to a rebellion led by Li Zicheng, numerous rump regimes ruled by remnants of the Ming imperial family, collectively called the Southern Ming, survived until 1662.
Ming admiral Zheng He sets sail to explore the world for the first time.
Sir Martin Frobisher was an English sea captain and privateer who made three voyages to the New World looking for the North-west Passage. He probably sighted Resolution Island near Labrador in eastern Canada, before entering Frobisher Bay and landing on present-day Baffin Island.
Martin Frobisher sights Greenland.
A dwarf planet is a small planetary-mass object that is in direct orbit around the Sun, massive enough to be gravitationally rounded, but insufficient to achieve orbital dominance like the eight classical planets of the Solar System. The prototypical dwarf planet is Pluto, which for decades was regarded as a planet before the "dwarf" concept was adopted in 2006. Many planetary geologists consider dwarf planets and planetary-mass moons to be planets, but since 2006 the IAU and many astronomers have excluded them from the roster of planets.
Mathematical calculations suggest that it is on this day that dwarf planet Pluto moved inside the orbit of Neptune for the last time before 1979.
A pogrom is a violent riot incited with the aim of massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, usually applied to attacks on Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe late 19th- and early 20th-century attacks on Jews in the Russian Empire. Retrospectively, similar attacks against Jews which occurred in other times and places were renamed pogroms. Contemporarily, the word is also used to describe publicly sanctioned purgative attacks against non-Jewish groups. The characteristics of a pogrom vary widely, depending on the specific incident, at times leading to, or culminating in, massacres.
Pogrom: Jews are expelled from Little Russia.
Halifax, officially the Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM), is the capital and most populous municipality of the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, and the most populous municipality in Atlantic Canada. It consists of four former municipalities that were amalgamated in 1996: Halifax, Dartmouth, Bedford, and Halifax County.
Halifax, Nova Scotia is almost completely destroyed by fire.
Jacques Necker was a Genevan banker, financier and statesman who served as finance minister of France for Louis XVI. He was a reformer, but his innovations sometimes caused great discontent. Necker was a constitutional monarchist, a political economist, and a moralist, who wrote a severe critique of the new principle of equality before the law.
Jacques Necker is dismissed as France's Finance Minister sparking the Storming of the Bastille.
Detroit is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from the Canadian city of Windsor, Ontario. It is the 26th-most populous city in the United States and the largest U.S. city on the Canada–United States border, with a population of 639,111 at the 2020 census, and an estimated 2025 population of 649,095. The Metro Detroit area, at over 4.4 million people, is the 14th-largest metropolitan area in the nation and second-largest in the Midwest. The county seat of Wayne County, Detroit is a significant cultural center known for its contributions to music, art, architecture, and design, in addition to its historical automotive and industrial background.
The United States takes possession of Detroit from Great Britain under terms of the Jay Treaty.
The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines or simply the Marines, is the naval infantry service branch of the United States Armed Forces. The service is responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious warfare through combined arms, implementing its own infantry, artillery, aerial, and special operations forces. The U.S. Marine Corps is a part of the United States Department of Defense and is one of the six armed forces of the United States and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States.
The United States Marine Corps is re-established; they had been disbanded after the American Revolutionary War.
Jean-Louis Pons was a French astronomer. Despite humble beginnings and being self-taught, he went on to become the greatest visual comet discoverer of all time: between 1801 and 1827 Pons discovered thirty-seven comets, more than any other person in history.
French astronomer Jean-Louis Pons makes his first comet discovery. In the next 27 years he discovers another 36 comets, more than any other person in history.
The Burr–Hamilton duel took place in Weehawken, New Jersey, between Aaron Burr, the U.S. vice president at the time, and Alexander Hamilton, the first and former secretary of the treasury, at dawn on July 11, 1804. The duel was the culmination of a bitter rivalry that had developed over years between both men, who were high-profile politicians in the newly-established United States, founded following the victorious American Revolution and its associated Revolutionary War. It is one of the most famous duels in American history.
A duel occurs in which the Vice President of the United States Aaron Burr mortally wounds former Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton.
The Noongar are Aboriginal Australian people who live in the south-west corner of Western Australia, from Geraldton on the west coast to Esperance on the south coast. There are 14 different groups in the Noongar cultural bloc: Amangu, Ballardong, Yued, Kaneang, Koreng, Mineng, Njakinjaki, Njunga, Pibelmen, Pindjarup, Wadandi, Whadjuk, Wiilman and Wudjari. The Noongar people refer to their land as Noongar boodja.
Noongar Australian aboriginal warrior Yagan, wanted for the murder of white colonists in Western Australia, is killed.
Waterloo station, also known as London Waterloo, is a major central London railway terminus on the National Rail network in the United Kingdom, in the Waterloo area of the London Borough of Lambeth. It is connected to a London Underground station of the same name and is adjacent to Waterloo East station on the South Eastern Main Line. The station is the terminus of the South West Main Line to Weymouth via Southampton, the West of England main line to Exeter via Salisbury, the Portsmouth Direct line to Portsmouth Harbour which connects with ferry services to the Isle of Wight, and several commuter services around west and south-west London, Surrey, Hampshire and Berkshire.
Waterloo railway station in London opens.
The American Civil War was a civil war in the United States between the Union and the Confederacy, which was formed in 1861 by states that had seceded from the Union to preserve slavery in the United States. The South saw slavery as threatened because of the election of Abraham Lincoln and the growing abolitionist movement in the North. The war ended with Union victory, the dissolution of the Confederacy and the abolition of slavery, freeing four million African Americans.
American Civil War: Battle of Fort Stevens; Confederate forces attempt to invade Washington, D.C.
The British Mediterranean Fleet, also known as the Mediterranean Station, was a formation of the Royal Navy. The Fleet was one of the most prestigious commands in the navy for the majority of its history, defending the vital sea link between the United Kingdom and India. General at Sea Robert Blake was appointed as the first commander in September 1654. The Fleet was in existence until 1967.
The British Mediterranean Fleet begins the Bombardment of Alexandria in Egypt as part of the Anglo-Egyptian War.
Tijuana is the most populous city of the Mexican state of Baja California, located on the northwestern Pacific Coast of Mexico. It is the municipal seat of the Tijuana Municipality, the hub of the Tijuana metropolitan area and the most populous city in northern Mexico. Tijuana is just south of California and is adjacent to the Mexico–United States border which is part of the San Diego–Tijuana metro area.
Tijuana, Mexico, is founded.
A pearl is a hard, glistening object produced within the soft tissue of a living shelled mollusk or another animal, such as fossil conulariids. Just like the shell of a mollusk, a pearl is composed of calcium carbonate in minute crystalline form, which is deposited in concentric layers. More commercially valuable pearls are perfectly round and smooth, but many other shapes, known as baroque pearls, can occur. The finest quality of natural pearls have been highly valued as gemstones and objects of beauty for many centuries. Because of this, pearls have become a metaphor for something rare, fine, admirable, and valuable.
The first cultured pearl is obtained by Kokichi Mikimoto.
In political science, a revolution is a rapid, fundamental transformation of a society's class, state, ethnic, or religious structures. According to the sociologist Jack Goldstone, all revolutions contain "a common set of elements at their core: (a) efforts to change the political regime that draw on a competing vision of a just order, (b) a notable degree of informal or formal mass mobilization, and (c) efforts to force change through noninstitutionalized actions such as mass demonstrations, protests, strikes, or violence."
A revolution led by the liberal general and politician José Santos Zelaya takes over state power in Nicaragua.
The Lumière brothers, Auguste Marie Louis Nicolas Lumière and Louis Jean Lumière, were French manufacturers of photography equipment, best known for their Cinématographe motion picture system and the short films they produced between 1895 and 1905, which places them among the earliest filmmakers.
Brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière demonstrate movie film technology to scientists.
Salomon August Andrée, during his lifetime most often known as S. A. Andrée, was a Swedish engineer, physicist, aeronaut and polar explorer who died while leading an attempt to reach the Geographic North Pole by hydrogen balloon. The balloon expedition was unsuccessful in reaching the Pole and resulted in the deaths of all three of its participants.
Salomon August Andrée leaves Spitsbergen to attempt to reach the North Pole by balloon. He later crashes and dies.
Grace Mae Brown was an American woman who was murdered by her boyfriend, Chester Gillette, on Big Moose Lake, New York, after telling him she was pregnant. The murder, and the subsequent trial of the suspect, attracted national newspaper attention.
Murder of Grace Brown by Chester Gillette in the United States, inspiration for Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy.
George Herman "Babe" Ruth was an American professional baseball player whose career in Major League Baseball (MLB) spanned 22 seasons, from 1914 through 1935. Nicknamed "the Bambino" and "the Sultan of Swat", he began his MLB career as a star left-handed pitcher for the Boston Red Sox, but achieved his greatest fame as a slugging outfielder for the New York Yankees. Ruth is regarded as one of the greatest sports heroes in American culture and is considered by many to be the greatest baseball player of all time. In 1936, Ruth was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame as one of its "first five" members.
Babe Ruth makes his debut in Major League Baseball.
USS Nevada (BB-36), the third United States Navy ship to be named after the 36th state, was the lead ship of the two Nevada-class battleships. Launched in 1914, Nevada was a leap forward in dreadnought technology; four of her new features would be included on almost every subsequent US battleship: triple gun turrets, oil in place of coal for fuel, geared steam turbines for greater range, and the "all or nothing" armor principle. These features made Nevada, alongside her sister ship Oklahoma, the first US Navy "standard-type" battleships.
USS Nevada (BB-36) is launched.
The East Prussian plebiscite, also known as the Allenstein and Marienwerder plebiscite or Warmia, Masuria and Powiśle plebiscite, was a plebiscite for the self-determination of the regions of southern Warmia (Ermland), Masuria and Powiśle, which had been in parts of the East Prussian Government Region of Allenstein and of the West Prussian Government Region of Marienwerder in accordance with Articles 94 to 97 of the Treaty of Versailles.
In the East Prussian plebiscite the local populace decides to remain with Weimar Germany.
The Irish War of Independence, also known as the Anglo-Irish War, was a guerrilla war fought in Ireland from 1919 to 1921 between the Irish Republican Army and British forces: the British Army, along with the quasi-military Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) and its paramilitary forces the Auxiliaries and Ulster Special Constabulary (USC). It was part of the Irish revolutionary period.
A truce in the Irish War of Independence comes into effect.
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often referred by its shortened name as the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People's Commissars to oppose the military forces of the new nation's adversaries during the Russian Civil War, especially the various groups collectively known as the White Army. In February 1946, the Red Army was renamed the "Soviet Army". Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, it was split between the post-Soviet states, with its bulk becoming the Russian Ground Forces, commonly considered to be the successor of the Soviet Army.
The Red Army captures Mongolia from the White Army and establishes the Mongolian People's Republic.
The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces.
Former President of the United States William Howard Taft is sworn in as 10th Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, becoming the only person ever to hold both offices.
The Hollywood Bowl is an amphitheatre and public park in the Hollywood Hills of Los Angeles, California. It was named one of the ten best live music venues in the United States by Rolling Stone magazine in 2018 and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2023.
The Hollywood Bowl opens.
Eric Henry Liddell was a Scottish sprinter, rugby player and a Christian missionary. Born in Tianjin, China to Scottish missionary parents, he attended a boarding school near London, spending time when possible with his family in Edinburgh, and afterwards attended the University of Edinburgh.
Eric Liddell won the gold medal in 400m at the 1924 Paris Olympics, after refusing to run in the heats for 100m, his favoured distance, on the Sunday
Engelbert Zaschka was a German chief engineer, chief designer and inventor. Zaschka is one of the first German helicopter pioneers and he is a pioneer of flying with muscle power and the folding car. Zaschka devoted himself primarily to aviation and automotive topics, but his work was not limited to them.
Engelbert Zaschka of Germany flies his large human-powered aircraft, the Zaschka Human-Power Aircraft, about 20 meters at Berlin Tempelhof Airport without assisted take-off.
The Robert F. Kennedy Bridge is a complex of bridges and elevated expressway viaducts in New York City. The bridges link the boroughs of Manhattan, Queens, and the Bronx. The viaducts cross Randalls and Wards Islands, previously two islands and now joined by landfill.
The Triborough Bridge in New York City is opened to traffic.
World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the death of 60 to 75 million people. Millions died as a result of massacres, starvation, disease, and genocides, including the Holocaust. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.
World War II: Vichy France regime is formally established. Philippe Pétain becomes Prime Minister of France.
The Northern Rhodesian Labour Party was a political party in Northern Rhodesia. It was founded by Roy Welensky of the Rhodesian Railway Workers' Union originally to support white Rhodesian working class interests but also to support the creation of a federal state with Northern Rhodesia, Southern Rhodesia and Nyasaland. It was dissolved in 1944 after losing the elections that year.
The Northern Rhodesian Labour Party holds its first congress in Nkana.
The massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia were carried out in German-occupied Poland by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), with the support of parts of the local Ukrainian population, against the Polish minority in Volhynia, Eastern Galicia, parts of Polesia, and the Lublin region from 1943 to 1945. The UPA's actions resulted in up to 100,000 Polish deaths.
Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army within the Reichskommissariat Ukraine (Volhynia) peak.
The Allied invasion of Sicily, also known as the Battle of Sicily and Operation Husky, was a major campaign of World War II in which Allied forces invaded the Italian island of Sicily in July 1943 and took it from the Axis forces. The island was defended by the Italian 6th Army and the German XIV Panzer Corps. The invasion paved the way for the Allied invasion of mainland Italy and initiated the Italian campaign that removed Italy from the war.
World War II: Allied invasion of Sicily: German and Italian troops launch a counter-attack on Allied forces in Sicily.
Exodus 1947 was a packet steamship that was built in the United States in 1928 as President Warfield for the Baltimore Steam Packet Company. From her completion in 1928 until 1942 she carried passengers and freight across the Chesapeake Bay between Norfolk, Virginia and Baltimore, Maryland.
The Exodus 1947 heads to Palestine from France.
Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the second-largest Muslim population as of 2023. Islamabad is the nation's capital, while Karachi is its largest city and financial centre. Pakistan is the 33rd-largest country by area. Bounded by the Arabian Sea on the south, the Gulf of Oman on the southwest, and the Sir Creek on the southeast, it shares land borders with India to the east; Afghanistan to the west; Iran to the southwest; and China to the northeast. It shares a maritime border with Oman in the Gulf of Oman, and is separated from Tajikistan in the northwest by Afghanistan's narrow Wakhan Corridor.
Pakistan joins the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank.
Prince Shah Karim al-Hussaini, known simply as Aga Khan IV, was the 49th Imam of Nizari Isma'ili Shia Islam from 1957 until his death in 2025. He inherited the Nizari imamate and the title of Aga Khan at the age of 20 upon the death of his grandfather, Sultan Muhammad Shah. During his Imamate, he was also known by the religious title Mawlānā Hazar Imam by his Isma'ili followers.
Prince Karim Husseini Aga Khan IV inherits the office of Imamat as the 49th Imam of Shia Imami Ismai'li worldwide, after the death of Sir Sultan Mahommed Shah Aga Khan III.
The Republic of Dahomey, simply known as Dahomey, was established on 4 December 1958, as a self-governing colony within the French Community. Prior to attaining autonomy, it had been French Dahomey, part of the French Union. On 1 August 1960, it attained full independence from France.
France legislates for the independence of Dahomey (later Benin), Upper Volta (later Burkina) and Niger.
The Congo Crisis was a period of political upheaval and conflict between 1960 and 1965 in the Republic of the Congo. The crisis began almost immediately after the Congo became independent from Belgium and ended, unofficially, with the entire country under the rule of Joseph-Désiré Mobutu. Constituting a series of civil wars, the Congo Crisis was also a proxy conflict in the Cold War, in which the Soviet Union and the United States supported opposing factions. Around 100,000 people are believed to have been killed during the crisis.
Congo Crisis: The State of Katanga breaks away from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
To Kill a Mockingbird is a 1960 Southern Gothic novel by American author Harper Lee. It became instantly successful after its release; in the United States, it is widely read in high schools and middle schools. To Kill a Mockingbird won the Pulitzer Prize a year after its release, and it has become a classic of modern American literature. The plot and characters are loosely based on Lee's observations of her family, her neighbors and an event that occurred near her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama, in 1936, when she was ten.
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is first published, in the United States.
Satellite television is a service that delivers television programming to viewers by relaying it from a communications satellite orbiting the Earth directly to the viewer's location. The signals are received via an outdoor parabolic antenna commonly referred to as a satellite dish and a low-noise block downconverter.
First transatlantic satellite television transmission.
The Apollo program, also known as Project Apollo, was the United States human spaceflight program led by NASA, which landed the first humans on the Moon in 1969. Apollo was conceived in 1960 in the Dwight D. Eisenhower presidency during Project Mercury and executed after Project Gemini. Apollo was later dedicated to President John F. Kennedy's national goal, "before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth" in his address to the U.S. Congress on May 25, 1961.
Project Apollo: At a press conference, NASA announces lunar orbit rendezvous as the means to land astronauts on the Moon, and return them to Earth.
Copper is a chemical element; it has symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish-orange color. Copper is used as a conductor of heat and electricity, as a building material, and as a constituent of various metal alloys, such as sterling silver used in jewelry, cupronickel used to make marine hardware and coins, and constantan used in strain gauges and thermocouples for temperature measurement.
Copper mines in Chile are nationalized.
The World Chess Championship 1972 was a match for the World Chess Championship between challenger Bobby Fischer of the United States and defending champion Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union. The match took place in the Laugardalshöll in Reykjavík, Iceland, and has been dubbed the Match of the Century. Fischer became the first US-born player to win the world title. Fischer's win also ended, for a short time, 24 years of Soviet domination of the World Championship.
The first game of the World Chess Championship 1972 between challenger Bobby Fischer and defending champion Boris Spassky starts.
Varig Flight 820 was a scheduled flight of the Brazilian airline Varig that departed from Galeão International Airport in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on 11 July 1973, for Orly Airport, in Paris, France. The Boeing 707, registration PP-VJZ, made an emergency landing in onion fields about 5 km (2.7 nmi) from Orly Airport, due to smoke in the cabin from a lavatory fire. The fire caused 123 deaths; there were only 11 survivors . Relief Captain Antonio Fuzimoto was the pilot who handled the controls and landed the plane in the field.
Varig Flight 820 crashes near Paris, France on approach to Orly Airport, killing 123 of the 134 on board. In response, the FAA bans smoking on flights.
Martin Luther King Jr. was an American civil rights activist and Baptist minister who was a prominent leader of the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968. He advanced civil rights for people of color in the United States through the use of nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience against Jim Crow laws and other forms of legalized discrimination, which most commonly affected African Americans.
Martin Luther King, Jr. is posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
The Los Alfaques disaster was caused by the explosion of a road tanker near a holiday campsite on 11 July 1978 in Alcanar, Spain. The exploding tanker, which was carrying 23 tons of highly flammable liquefied propylene, killed 215 people and severely burned 200 more, 178 of those killed were French. Several individuals from the company that owned the vehicle were prosecuted for criminal negligence. The disaster resulted in new legislation in Spain, restricting the transit of vehicles carrying dangerous cargo through populated areas to night time only.
Los Alfaques disaster: A truck carrying liquid gas crashes and explodes at a coastal campsite in Tarragona, Spain killing 216 tourists.
Skylab was the United States' first space station, launched by NASA, occupied for about 24 weeks between May 1973 and February 1974. It was operated by three trios of astronaut crews: Skylab 2, Skylab 3, and Skylab 4.
America's first space station, Skylab, is destroyed as it re-enters the Earth's atmosphere over the Indian Ocean.
The Oka Crisis, also known as the Mohawk Crisis or Kanehsatà:ke Resistance, was a land dispute between a group of Mohawk people and the town of Oka, Quebec, Canada, over plans to build a golf course on land known as "The Pines" which included an Indigenous burial ground. The crisis began on July 11, 1990, and lasted 78 days until September 26, with two fatalities. The dispute was the first well-publicized violent conflict between First Nations and provincial governments in the late 20th century.
Oka Crisis: First Nations land dispute in Quebec, Canada begins.
Nigeria Airways Flight 2120 was a chartered passenger flight from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, to Sokoto, Nigeria, on 11 July 1991, which caught fire shortly after takeoff from King Abdulaziz International Airport and crashed while attempting to return for an emergency landing, killing all 247 passengers and 14 crew members on board. The investigation traced the fire to underinflated tires which overheated and burst during takeoff, and subsequently discovered that a project manager had prevented those tires from being replaced because the aircraft was behind schedule. The aircraft was a Douglas DC-8 operated by Nationair Canada for Nigeria Airways. Flight 2120 is the deadliest accident involving a DC-8 and the deadliest aviation disaster involving a Canadian airline.
Nigeria Airways Flight 2120 crashes in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia killing all 261 passengers and crew on board.
PBS Kids, is the branding used for nationally distributed children's programming carried by the U.S. public television network PBS. The brand encompasses a daytime block of children's programming carried daily by most PBS member stations, a 24-hour channel carried on the digital subchannels of PBS member stations, and its accompanying digital platforms.
PTV is introduced as a kids programming block for PBS to broadcast educational programming to underprivileged children.
The Srebrenica massacre, also known as the Srebrenica genocide, was the July 1995 genocidal killing of more than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys in and around the town of Srebrenica during the Bosnian War. It was mainly perpetrated by units of the Bosnian Serb Army of Republika Srpska under Ratko Mladić, though the Serb paramilitary unit Scorpions also participated. In addition, 25,000 to 30,000 Bosniaks, mainly women and children, were abused and forcibly moved out of Srebrenica. The massacre constitutes the first legally recognised genocide in Europe since the end of World War II.
Srebrenica massacre begins; lasts until 22 July.
The 2006 Mumbai train bombings were a series of seven bomb blasts on 11 July 2006. They took place over a period of 11 minutes on the Suburban Railway in Mumbai, the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the nation's financial capital. The bombs were set off in pressure cookers on trains on the Western Line Suburban Section of the Mumbai Division of Western Railway. The blasts killed 209 people and injured over 700 more.
Mumbai train bombings: Two hundred nine people are killed in a series of bomb attacks in Mumbai, India.
On 11 July 2010, suicide bombings were carried out against crowds watching a screening of the 2010 FIFA World Cup Final at two locations in Kampala, the capital city of Uganda. The attacks left 74 dead and 85 injured. Al-Shabaab, an Islamist militia based in Somalia that has ties to al-Qaeda, claimed responsibility for the blasts as retaliation for Ugandan support for AMISOM. In March 2015, the trial of 13 Kenyan, Ugandan and Tanzanian alleged perpetrators of the bombings began at the High Court of Uganda.
July 2010 Kampala attacks: At least 74 people are killed in twin suicide bombings at two locations in Kampala, Uganda
On 11 July 2011, at Evangelos Florakis Naval Base, situated at Mari, Larnaca District in Cyprus, a large amount of ammunition and military explosives self-detonated, killing 13 people, including the Commander of the Cyprus Navy, Andreas Ioannides, the base commander, Lambros Lambrou, and six firefighters. A further 62 people were injured. So intense was the explosion that debris was blown as far as 3km from the base. The explosion was the worst peacetime military accident ever recorded in Cyprus, with a yield of approximately 481 tons TNT equivalent, as determined by the official investigation into the accident. It was the largest artificial non-nuclear explosion of the 21st century until the 2020 Beirut explosions.
Evangelos Florakis Naval Base explosion: Ninety-eight containers of explosives self-detonate killing 13 people in Zygi, Cyprus.
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