2000 With water cannons and a high steel wall, British soldiers and police works to prevent Protestants from breaching their lines to reach a nearby Catholic neighbourhood. Protestant rioting sparked by that tense standoff in Portadown, 50km southwest of Belfast, has been spreading and intensifying each night, particularly in Belfast. Leaders of the Orange Order, Northern Ireland’s once-dominant Protestant brotherhood, said they were determined to wear down the British security forces. Catholics in isolated districts complained that the Royal Ulster Constabulary, itself the primary target, was not doing enough to protect them. Several Catholic families in north Belfast reported having to evacuate their homes overnight when Protestants outside shouted death threats and broke windows. “Petrol bombs, fireworks, ball bearings and acid squirted at the police: Those are not the weapons of democrats or legitimate protest. They are the weapons of the bully, and the bully will not have his way,” said Britain’s minister for Northern Ireland, Peter Mandelson.
1811 Venezuela declares independence from Spain.
1812 Britain makes peace with Russia and Sweden.
1830 French invade Algeria and take Algiers.
1841 Thomas Cook open the world’s first travel agency in Leicester, England.
1865 Methodist minister William Booth founds the Christian Revival Association, later to become the Salvation Army, in London.
1892 Andrew Beard is issued a patent for a rotary engine.
1922 First general elections held in the Netherlands.
1932 Right-wing politician Antonio de Oliveira Salazar becomes Portugal’s Prime Minister.
1935 US President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the National Labour Relations Act.
1954 B-52A bomber made its maiden flight.
1969 Kenyan politician Tom Mboya is assassinated in Nairobi.
1970 Air Canada DC-8 crashes near Toronto’s airport, killing 109.
1973 Juvénal Habyarimana becomes President of Rwanda after seizing power in a military coup.
1975 Arthur Ashe becomes the first black man to win a Wimbledon singles title.
1977 Chief of Army Staff of Pakistan, General Zia-ul-Haq, seizes power from Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
1980 Zimbabwe Prime Minister Robert Mugabe breaks diplomatic ties with South Africa.
1991 The Bank of Credit and Commerce International is shut down after the discovery of fraud.
1994 Palestine leader Yasser Arafat returns to the West Bank after 27 years.
1997 Martina Hingis becomes the youngest Wimbledon singles champion in 110 years.
2002 A powerful bomb blast in Algeria kills 35 people in Larbaa.
2003 Two female suicide bombers kill themselves and at least 14 others at Tushino airfield on the outskirts of Moscow.
2004 The first Indonesian presidential election is held.
2005 Roger Federer of Switzerland wins Wimbledon for his record 15th Grand Slam title.
2006 Dubai Land Department starts registration of freehold properties for non-GCC residents.
2008 At least 25 inmates are shot dead by Syrian security forces during a riot by political detainees at a prison in mountains outside Damascus.
2010 Bronislaw Komorowski is elected President of Poland, beating Jaroslaw Kaczynski.
2012 The first truck carrying supplies to American and Nato troops crosses border after seven months.
2014 Petra Kvitova wins her second Wimbledon title in 55 minutes, the shortest women’s final since 1983.
