2006 - The much-awaited French college at Academic City was inaugurated by Bernadette Chirac, wife of French President Jacques Chirac. Princess Haya Bint Al Hussain, wife of His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, and Nazek Hariri, wife of the late Rafik Hariri, were also present. The new Lycee Georges Pompidou campus, which opened on January 1 with a current student body of 650 students of 30 nationalities, was also opened by the French Ambassador Patrice Paoli and French consul-general Robert Jongeryck. “It is amazing to see this school rise from the sands, and it is very impressive to drive here through the sand to an exceptional establishment,” Bernadette said.
Other important events
1728 - A huge fire destroys a large part of Copenhagen.
1795 - Warren Hastings, former British governor general of India, is acquitted of high treason.
1848 - French voters, with universal male suffrage for the first time, go to the polls to elect a national assembly.
1935 - Poland’s Constitution is adopted after nine years of discussions.
1904 - United States acquires property of French Panama Canal Company.
1964 - Copenhagen’s trademark Little Mermaid statue gets her head sawn off by unknown men. The head is never found and a new one is moulded and welded on her.
1972 - Two US Apollo 16 astronauts blast off from the moon and rejoin command ship for journey back to Earth.
1975 - US President Gerald Ford declares that the Vietnam War is over.
1990 - Namibia becomes the 160th member of the United Nations.
1992 - A series of gas explosions rocks Guadalajara, Mexico, killing more than 230 people.
1992 - McDonald’s opens its first fast-food restaurant in the Chinese capital Beijing.
1993 - Lalith Athulathmudali, Sri Lanka’s top opposition leader, is assassinated by a lone gunman.
2004 - US President George W. Bush takes steps to restore normal trade ties with Libya.
2007 - Former Russian president Boris Yeltsin dies of cardiac arrest.
2010 - Karting champion Christophe Hissette is killed in a crash at the Dubai Autodrome.
2011 - Yahsat, a UAE-based satellite communications company, launches its first satellite into orbit.
2013 - Kuwaiti Saud Al Sanousi wins the International Prize for Arabic Fiction.
