Victorious French fishermen dramatically call off their stranglehold of the Channel after the government in Paris caved in to their demand for cheaper fuel prices. In extraordinary scenes at the Channel Tunnel, where riot police had stepped in to prevent clashes with British tourists, the fishermen changed from belligerent defiance to elation in seconds as fishermen’s leader Andre Fauchet receives a call from the Agriculture and Fisheries Ministry that they had won. In 27 hours the fishermen had brought the French government to its knees and saw the price of diesel reduced from 2.1 francs a litre to 1.3 francs. Strike leader Jose Huleux, the 52-year-old dubbed Monsieur Misery in Britain, beamed broadly and said: “It is all over. We have won a great victory.”
Other important events:
1876 Turkey’s Sultan Murad V is deposed on plea of insanity and is succeeded by Abdul Hamid II.
1900 British forces under Frederick Roberts occupy Johannesburg, South Africa.
1907 England, Russia and France form Triple Entente.
1918 Bolshevik troops attack British Embassy in Petrograd, Russia.
1919 Ukrainian Army recaptures Kiev.
1922 Czech-Serb-Croat Alliance is signed at Marienbad.
1935 US President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs an act prohibiting the export of US arms to belligerents.
1939 Japanese invasion army driven out of Mongolia.
1951 The first 33-rpm long-playing record is introduced by the German company Deutsche Grammophon.
1955 The world’s first solar-power automobile designed by William G. Cobb, is demonstrated in Chicago, Illinois.
1957 Malaysia gains independence from Britain.
1969 Boxer Rocky Marciano dies in a plane crash in Iowa at age 45.
1977 Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith’s party wins the election and gains all 50 white seats in Parliament.
1978 Constitution is adopted by Sri Lanka.
1987 South Africa’s longest mine strike in history ends.
1986 An Aeromexico jet bound for Los Angeles international airport collide with a twin-engine airplane in Los Angeles and crashed into a residential neighbourhood, killing 53 people.
1986 A UAE Mirage jet crashes off the Sharjah-Dhaid highway while on an exercise mission.
1990 East and West Germany sign a treaty to join legal and political systems.
1991 Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan declare independence.
1993 Venezuela president Carlos Perez flees.
1994 Irish Republican Army declares an open-ended ceasefire in its 24-year campaign against British rule of Northern Ireland.
1994 Russian troops withdraw from Germany.
1997 Princess Diana dies in a high-speed Paris car crash.
2005 Some 1,000 Iraqi Shiite pilgrims die in a stampede over a Baghdad bridge, apparently provoked by rumours of a suicide bomber.
2009 The Walt Disney company announces the acquisition of Marvel Entertainment inc’s stock at $4 billion.
2010 American forces ends seven years of combat operations in Iraq.
2012 Angola holds Parliamentary elections.
2013 An ammonia leak from a cold storage unit at a food company in China’s commercial hub of Shanghai kills 15 people.
