What Happened on July 11th in History
30 historical events on this date
The Triborough Bridge in New York City is opened to traffic.
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...
World War II: Vichy France regime is formally established. Philippe Pétain becomes Chief of the French State.
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. Tanks and aircraft played major...
The Northern Rhodesian Labour Party holds its first congress in Nkana.
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...
Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army within the Reichskommissariat Ukraine (Volhynia) peak.
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,...
World War II: Allied invasion of Sicily: German and Italian troops launch a counter-attack on Allied forces in Sicily.
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...
The Exodus 1947 heads to Palestine from France.
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...
Pakistan joins the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank.
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...
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.
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...
France legislates for the independence of Dahomey (later Benin), Upper Volta (later Burkina Faso) and Niger.
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,...
Congo Crisis: The State of Katanga breaks away from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
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...
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is first published, in the United States.
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...
First transatlantic satellite television transmission.
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...
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.
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...
The nationalization of all large copper mines in Chile is completed.
The nationalization of the Chilean copper industry, commonly described as the Chilenization of copper was the process by which the Chilean government acquired control of the major foreign-owned...
The first game of the World Chess Championship 1972 between challenger Bobby Fischer and defending champion Boris Spassky starts.
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...
Varig Flight 820 crashes near Paris on approach to Orly Airport, killing 123 of the 134 on board. In response, the FAA bans smoking in airplane lavatories.
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....
Martin Luther King Jr., assassinated in 1968, is posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
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...
Los Alfaques disaster: A truck carrying liquid gas crashes and explodes at a coastal campsite in Tarragona, Spain killing 216 tourists.
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...
America's first space station, Skylab, is destroyed as it re-enters the Earth's atmosphere over the Indian Ocean.
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,...
Italy defeats West Germany 3–1 to win the FIFA World Cup.
The Italy national football team has represented Italy in men's international football since its first match in 1910. The national team is controlled by the Italian Football Federation (FIGC), the...
A TAME airline Boeing 737-200 crashes near Cuenca, Ecuador, killing all 119 passengers and crew on board.
TAME or TAME EP Linea Aerea del Ecuador was an airline founded in Ecuador in 1962. TAME was the flag carrier and the largest airline of Ecuador. TAME headquarters were in Quito, Pichincha Province...
Oka Crisis: First Nations land dispute in Quebec begins.
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...
Nigeria Airways Flight 2120 crashes in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, killing all 261 passengers and crew on board.
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...
Yugoslav Wars: Srebrenica massacre begins, lasting until 22 July.
The Yugoslav Wars were a series of separate but related ethnic conflicts, wars of independence, and insurgencies that took place from 1991 to 2001 in what had been the Socialist Federal Republic of...
Mumbai train bombings: 209 people are killed in a series of bomb attacks in Mumbai, India.
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...
The Islamist militia group Al-Shabaab carries out multiple suicide bombings in Kampala, Uganda, killing 74 people and injuring 85 others.
Islamism is a range of religious and political ideological movements that believe that Islam should influence political systems. Its proponents believe Islam is innately political, and that Islam as...
In Johannesburg, Spain defeat the Netherlands 1–0 after extra time to win their first FIFA World Cup title.
The Spain national football team has represented Spain in men's international football competition since 1920. It is governed by the Royal Spanish Football Federation, the governing body for...
Ninety-eight containers of explosives self-detonate killing 13 people in Zygi, Cyprus.
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...
Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán escapes from the maximum security Altiplano prison in Mexico, his second escape.
Joaquín Archivaldo Guzmán Loera, commonly known as "El Chapo", is a Mexican former drug lord and the former top leader of the Sinaloa Cartel. Guzmán is believed to be responsible for the deaths of...
Virgin Galactic launches its founder, Richard Branson, into space, the first company ever to do so.
Virgin Galactic Holdings, Inc. is a British-American spaceflight company founded by Richard Branson and the Virgin Group conglomerate, which retains an 11.9% stake through Virgin Investments Limited.