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