July
11
World
Population Day
In 1989, in its decision 89/46, the Governing Council of the
United Nations Development Programme recommended that, in order
to focus attention on the urgency and importance of population
issues in the context of overall development plans and programmes
and the need to find solutions for these issues, 11 July should
be observed by the international community as World Population
Day.
The unprecedented
decrease in mortality that began to accelerate in the more developed
parts of the world in the nineteenth century and expanded to
all the world in the twentieth century is one of the major achievements
of humanity. By one estimate, life expectancy at birth increased
from 30 to 67 years between 1800 and 2005, leading to a rapid
growth of the population: from 1 billion in 1810 to nearly 7
billion in 2010.
The Population
Division collaborates closely with the agencies, funds, programmes
and bodies of the United Nations system in the implementation
of the work programme on population and in the follow-up to
the International Conference on Population and Development.
United Nations missions, national Government offices, United
Nations offices, researchers, media representatives and the
public regularly consult the Population Division regarding population
estimates and projections, and information and analyses on population
and development issues.
At its thirty-eighth session (E/2007/24), the Statistical Commission
requested the United Nations Statistics Division and other international
agencies to increase their technical assistance to national
statistical offices in order to strengthen national capacity
for the implementation of the 2010 World Programme on Population
and Housing Censuses. In addition, the Commission requested
countries to begin implementation of the revised Principles
and Recommendations for Population and Housing Censuses.
UNFPA works with many partners, both within and outside the
United Nations system, including Governments, non-governmental
organizations, civil society, faith-based organizations, religious
leaders and others, to achieve its mission. To better respond
to local needs, UNFPA increasingly devotes resources to country-led
efforts, placing emphasis on country-focused and country-led
implementation to achieve improved results, at the same time
addressing mutual accountability and strengthening harmonization
and alignment.
Themes
of Past World Population Day
2010 - Be Counted: Say What You Need
2009 - Fight Poverty: Educate Girls
2008 - Plan Your Family, Plan Your Future
2007 - Men at Work
2006 - Being Young is Tough
2005 - Equality Empowers
2004 - ICPD at 10
2003 - 1,000,000,000 adolescents
Events
472 – After
being besieged in Rome by his own generals, Western Roman Emperor
Anthemius is captured in the Old St. Peter's Basilica and put
to death.
911 – Signing of the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte between
Charles the Simple and Rollo of Normandy.
1302 – Battle of the Golden Spurs (Guldensporenslag in Dutch)
– a coalition around the Flemish cities defeats the king of
France's royal army.
1346 – Charles IV of Luxembourg is elected emperor of the Holy
Roman Empire.
1405 – Ming admiral Zheng He sets sail to explore the world
for the first time.
1476 – Giuliano della Rovere is appointed bishop of Coutances.
1576 – Martin Frobisher sights Greenland.
1616 – Samuel de Champlain returns to Quebec.
1735 – 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.
1740 – Pogrom: Jews are expelled from Little Russia.
1750 – Halifax, Nova Scotia is almost completely destroyed by
fire.
1776 – Captain James Cook begins his third voyage.
1789 – Jacques Necker is dismissed as France's Finance Minister
sparking the Storming of the Bastille.
1796 – The United States takes possession of Detroit from Great
Britain under terms of the Jay Treaty.
1798 – The United States Marine Corps is re-established; they
had been disbanded after the American Revolutionary War.
1801 – French astronomer Jean-Louis Pons made his first comet
discovery. In the next 27 years he discovered another 36 comets,
more than any other person in history.
1804 – A duel occurs in which the Vice President of the United
States Aaron Burr mortally wounds former Secretary of the Treasury
Alexander Hamilton.
1833 – Noongar Australian aboriginal warrior Yagan, wanted for
the murder of white colonists in Western Australia, is killed.
1848 – Waterloo railway station in London opens.
1864 – American Civil War: Battle of Fort Stevens; Confederate
forces attempt to invade Washington, D.C..
1882 – The British Mediterranean fleet begins the Bombardment
of Alexandria in Egypt as part of the 1882 Anglo-Egyptian War.
1889 – Tijuana, Mexico, is founded.
1893 – The first cultured pearl is obtained by Kokichi Mikimoto.
1893 – A revolution led by the liberal general and politician,
José Santos Zelaya, takes over state power in Nicaragua.
1895 – The Lumière brothers demonstrate film technology to scientists.
1897 – Salomon August Andrée leaves Spitsbergen to attempt to
reach the North pole by balloon. He later crashes and dies.
1906 – The Gillette-Brown murder inspires Theodore Dreiser's
An American Tragedy.
1914 – Babe Ruth makes his debut in Major league baseball.
1919 – The eight-hour working day and free Sunday become law
in the Netherlands.
1920 – In the East Prussian plebiscite the local populace decides
to remain with Weimar Germany
1921 – A truce is called in the Irish War of Independence; see
Irish calendar.
1921 – Former U.S. President William Howard Taft is sworn in
as 10th Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, becoming the
only person to ever be both President and Chief Justice.
1921 – The Red Army captures Mongolia from the White Army and
establishes the Mongolian People's Republic.
1922 – The Hollywood Bowl opens.
1930 – Australian cricketer Don Bradman scores a world record
309 runs in one day, on his way to the highest individual Test
innings of 334, during a Test match against England.
1936 – The Triborough Bridge in New York City is opened to traffic.
1940 – World War II: Vichy France regime is formally established.
Henri Philippe Pétain becomes Prime Minister of France.
1943 – Massacres of Poles in Volhynia.
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.
1950 – Pakistan joins the International Monetary Fund and the
International Bank.
1957 – Prince Karim Husseini Aga Khan IV inherits the office
of Imamat as the 49th Imam of Shia Imami Ismaili worldwide,
after the death of Sir Sultan Mahommed Shah Aga Khan III.
1960 – Independence of Benin, Burkina Faso and Niger.
1960 – To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is first published.
1960 – Congo Crisis: The State of Katanga breaks away from the
Democratic Republic of the Congo.
1962 – First transatlantic satellite television transmission.
1971 – Copper mines in Chile are nationalized.
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 on approach to Orly
Airport, killing 123 of the 134 on-board.
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.
1983 – A Boeing 737 crashes into hilly terrain after a tail
strike in Cuenca, Ecuador, claiming 119 lives.
1990 – Oka Crisis: First Nations land dispute in Quebec, Canada
begins.
1991 – A Nationair DC-8 crashes during an emergency landing
at Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, killing 261.
1995 – A Cubana de Aviación Antonov An-24 crashes into the Caribbean
off southeast Cuba killing 44 people.
2006 – 209 people are killed in a series of bomb attacks in
Mumbai, India.
Holidays
and observances
Bonfire
Night, precursor to The Twelfth. (Northern Ireland)
China National Maritime Day (People's Republic of China)
Christian Feast Day:
Benedict of Nursia
Olga of Kiev
July 11 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Day of the Flemish Community (Flemish Community of Belgium)
Gospel Day (Kiribati)
Imamat Day (Ismailism)
National Day of Commemoration, held on the nearest Sunday to
this date. (Ireland)
The first day of Naadam, also known as Revolution Day (Mongolia)
World Population Day (International)
For details, contact Datacentre
|