1993 President Turgut Ozal, whose vision of Turkey’s place in a changing world made him the nation’s best-known politician, died of heart problems. Ozal died at Ankara’s Hacettepe University Hospital after being taken ill in bed a few hours earlier. He leapt to prominence around the world during the 1990-1991 Gulf crisis when he threw Turkey’s weight behind the US-led coalition which expelled Iraq from Kuwait.
Ozal, who favoured close ties with the West, tirelessly promoted Turkey’s merits as a secular, democratic, free-market model for its Islamic and former Communist neighbours. Flags flew at half-mast across Turkey and state radio and television interrupted programmes to play sombre music after announcing Ozal’s death.
A medical report said Ozal had arrived at hospital with no pulse or respiratory activity. Efforts to revive him failed. UAE President His Highness Shaikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan sent a cable of condolences to interim Turkish President and Parliamentary Speaker Hussamettin Cindoruk on the demise of Ozal.
1888 - The English Football League is founded at the Royal Hotel, Manchester.
1895 - China opens seven new ports and cedes Formosa (Taiwan), Port Arthur and the Liao Tung Peninsula to Japan.
1941 - Yugoslavia surrenders to Germany during the Second World War.
1942 - French General Henri Giraud escapes from Konigstein Castle near Dresden, Germany.
1946 - Last French troops leave Syria, which becomes independent.
1961 - Cuba is invaded at the Bay of Pigs by a US-supported invasion force.
1964 - American aviator Jerrie Mock becomes the first woman to complete a solo airplane flight around the world.
1969 - Czechoslovak Communist Party chairman Alexander Dubcek is deposed.
1971 - Egypt, Syria and Libya sign agreement to confederate.
1975 - Phnom Penh falls to communist insurgents, ending Cambodia’s five-year war.
1983 - India enters space age by launching SLV-3 rocket.
1989 - A Warsaw court lift a seven-year ban on Solidarity.
1992 - Russian lawmakers refuse to approve arms control pact, setting up another confrontation with President Boris Yeltsin.
1993 - President Turgut Ozal of Turkey dies of heart problems.
1999 - Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee resigns after a vote of no-confidence in parliament.
2002 - Independence hero and former guerrilla leader Xanana Gusmao wins a thumping victory in East Timor’s first presidential election.
2004 - Abdul Aziz Rantisi, Palestinian political leader, co-founder of Hamas is assassinated by Israel military.
2007 - A powerful remote-controlled bomb destroys a UN vehicle in Kandahar, killing four Nepalese guards and an Afghan driver.
2008 - Kenya swears in a power-sharing government to soothe fury over a disputed election that plunged the east African country into bloody crisis.
2009 - The International Cricket Council board announces that Pakistan is stripped of its hosting rights because of the “uncertainty surrounding Pakistan”.
2012 - Space shuttle Discovery makes final flight to Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Virginia.
2013 - 14 people are dead after a Texas fertiliser factory explodes in the United States.
2014 - Qatar signs a deal to end a political crisis with other Gulf states.
2015 - Iraqi government forces kill Saddam Hussain’s former deputy Ezzat Ebrahim Al Douri.
