1997 - Palestinian President Yasser Arafat took control of most of Hebron, telling Jewish colonists who remain at the heart of the divided city he wanted peace. Arafat laid claim to Hebron, the prize of months of bitter negotiations with Israel’s right-wing leader Benjamin Netanyahu, in a speech to 25,000 supporters on a hill above the city. “I tell [colonists] we do not want confrontation,” Arafat said, having flown by helicopter to the hilltop headquarters of Israel’s 30-year-long occupation that ended on Friday. “It’s all empty words, empty slogans. Our city’s been abandoned,” said David Wilder, a spokesman for the armed colonists, who live in the one-fifth of Hebron that remains in Israeli hands. “Now the city of Hebron is a liberated city,” Arafat told an enthusiastic crowd.
Other important events
1910 - Germany and Bolivia end commerce/friendship treaty.
1918 - The Bolsheviks dissolve Russian Constitutional Assembly in Petrograd.
1945 - Soviet troops take Krakow, Poland, during Second World War.
1956 - Sudan joins Arab League as its ninth member.
1960 - United States and Japan sign treaty of mutual security.
1966 - Indira Gandhi is elected India’s third Prime Minister.
1981 - United States and Iran sign an agreement paving the way for the release of 52 Americans held hostage for more than 14 months.
1986 - Yemeni President Ali Nasser Mohammad is ousted in revolt.
1989 - Soviet Union announces it will unilaterally withdraw some of its short-range nuclear missiles from Europe.
1990 - Controversial Indian guru Bhagwan Rajneesh dies of a heart attack in India.
1993 - Czech Republic and Slovakia join the United Nations.
1994 - An AC-130 transport plane is hit by small-arms fire near Sarajevo, prompting UN officials to suspend the city’s vital airlift.
1996 - Chechen sympathisers who had hijacked a Turkish ferry, surrender, ending a four-day ordeal for more than 240 hostages.
1997 - A powerful car bomb explodes outside a cafe in downtown Algiers, killing at least 20 people hours after attackers massacred 36.
1998 - Peru and Ecuador agree on a timetable for a peace treaty to formally end their 1995 border conflict.
2002 - Sudanese government signs a ceasefire agreement with the rebels.
2006 - Nasa launches its New Horizons space probe to study the dwarf planet Pluto.
2007 - China launches a missile to destroy an ageing satellite, sparking space arms race fears
2008 - Abu Dhabi Judicial Department appoints two women public prosecutors for the first time.
2009 - Russia and Ukraine sign a deal that restores natural gas shipments to Ukraine.
2014 - The UAE Cabinet passes the National Service Law, which stipulates compulsory military service for Emirati men ages 18 to 30.
