July 11

In July 1995 the UN-declared "safe area" of Srebrenica in eastern Bosnia fell to Bosnian Serb forces. Over the days that followed, Bosniak men and boys were separated from the women and driven into the surrounding countryside, where systematic mass executions and clandestine burials claimed the lives of approximately 8,000 people. International courts later judged the killings to be genocide; forensic teams spent years exhuming and identifying remains while survivors, families and nations sought accountability and memory.

On July 11, 1991, Nigeria Airways Flight 2120, a McDonnell Douglas DC‑8 departing King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah, suffered an inflight fire that began in the left main wheel‑well shortly after takeoff. Smoke and structural damage from the wheel‑area fire crippled systems and filled the cabin; the crew were unable to regain control and the aircraft crashed into the desert, killing all 261 people on board. The investigation traced the catastrophe to overheated or damaged tyre and wheel assemblies and to shortcomings in ground servicing and maintenance practices, prompting industry-wide attention to wheel/tyre maintenance and inflight fire procedures.

On July 11, 1973, Varig Flight 820, a Boeing 707 en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris–Orly, made a forced landing in a field short of Orly Airport after smoke and fire began in an aft lavatory. Of 134 people aboard, 123 died—most from inhalation of rapidly toxic smoke—while 11 survived. The accident and the BEA investigation that followed helped push aviation industry changes: lavatory smoke detection, redesigned waste receptacles, improved interior materials, and the tightening of in‑flight smoking rules.

On July 11, 1943, coordinated attacks swept across dozens of Polish villages in Volhynia, then under German occupation. Carried out by units associated with the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and local nationalist structures, the assaults marked a turning point in a campaign of mass violence that left tens of thousands dead, destroyed communities, and shaped Polish‑Ukrainian memory for generations.

On July 11, 1918, while anchored in Tokuyama Bay, the Imperial Japanese Navy dreadnought Kawachi suffered a catastrophic internal magazine explosion that broke her back and sank her in shallow water. The blast killed 621 crewmen, prompted wide‑ranging inquiries into magazine safety and the handling of Shimose explosives, and led the navy to revise storage, firefighting and magazine protections across the fleet.