July 10, 2011

2011Pierrette Alarie, Canadian soprano and educator (born 1921)^[†]

Pierrette Alarie, was a French Canadian coloratura soprano. She was married to the French-Canadian tenor Léopold Simoneau.

2011Roland Petit, French dancer and choreographer (born 1924)^[†]

Roland Petit was a French ballet company director, choreographer and dancer. He trained at the Paris Opera Ballet school, and became well known for his creative ballets.

2011Russian cruise ship Bulgaria sinks in the Volga River near Syukeyevo, Tatarstan, causing 122 deaths.^[†]

Bulgaria was a class 785/OL800 Russian river cruise ship which operated in the Volga-Don basin. On 10 July 2011, Bulgaria sank in the Kuybyshev Reservoir of the Volga River near Syukeyevo, Kamsko-Ustyinsky District, Tatarstan, Russia, with 201 passengers and crew aboard when sailing from the town of Bolgar to the regional capital, Kazan. The catastrophe led to 122 confirmed deaths.

2011Amid widespread backlash to revelations of phone hacking, the British weekly tabloid newspaper News of the World publishes its final issue and shuts down after nearly 168 years in print.^[†]

Beginning in the 1990s, and going as far until its shutdown in 2011, employees of the now-defunct newspaper News of the World engaged in phone hacking, police bribery, and exercising improper influence in the pursuit of stories.