July 11: Naadam in Mongolia begins; Day of the Flemish Community of Belgium
- 1405 – Chinese explorer Zheng He led a massive fleet of 317 ships from Suzhou on a trade mission to India.
- 1833 – Noongar warrior Yagan, wanted for leading attacks on white colonists in Western Australia, was killed, becoming a symbol of the unjust and sometimes brutal treatment of the indigenous peoples of Australia by colonial settlers.
- 1940 – French World War I hero Philippe Pétain (pictured) became Chief of State of Vichy France.
- 1943 – In a massive ethnic cleansing operation, units of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army attacked various Polish villages in the Volhynia region of present-day Ukraine, killing the Polish civilians and burning those settlements to the ground.
- 1978 – A tanker truck loaded with 23 tons of highly flammable liquid propylene caught fire and exploded in Alcanar, Spain, killing 217 people and severely burning 200 others.
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