HISTORY AT A GLANCE
TODAY is Tuesday, July 11, the 192nd day of 2017. There are 173 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1943 – World War II: Allied invasion of Sicily – German and Italian troops launch a counter-attack on Allied forces in Sicily. 1947 – The Exodus 1947 heads to Palestine from France. 1960 – France legislates for the independence of Dahomey
(later Benin), Upper Volta (later Burkina) and Niger. 1960 – Congo Crisis: The State of Katanga breaks away from
the Democratic Republic of the Congo. 1960 – To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is first published,
in the United States. 1962 – First transatlantic satellite television transmission. 1962 – 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. 1972 – The first game of the World Chess Championship 1972 between challenger Bobby Fischer and defending champion Boris Spassky starts. 1973 – 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. 1977 – Martin Luther King, Jr. is posthumously awarded the
Presidential Medal of Freedom. 1978 – Los Alfaques disaster: A truck carrying liquid gas crashes and explodes at a coastal campsite in Tarragona, Spain killing 216 tourists. 1979 – America’s first space station, Skylab, is destroyed as it re-enters the Earth’s atmosphere over the Indian Ocean. 1990 – Oka Crisis: First Nations land dispute in Quebec,
Canada begins. 1991 – Nigeria Airways Flight 2120 crashes in Jeddah, Saudi
Arabia killing all 261 passengers and crew on board 1995 – The Srebrenica massacre is carried out. 2006 – Mumbai train bombings: Two hundred nine people are
killed in a series of bomb attacks in Mumbai, India. 2010 – July 2010 Kampala attacks: At least 74 people are killed in twin suicide bombings at two locations in Kampala, Uganda 2011 – Evangelos Florakis Naval Base explosion: Ninetyeight containers of explosives self-detonate killing 13 people in Zygi, Cyprus. 2012 – Astronomers announce the discovery of Styx, the fifth
moon of Pluto.