Shaikh Mohammad becomes Chief-of-Staff
1992 - President His Highness Shaikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan issued Federal Decree No. 83, 1992, appointing Major General Shaikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan as Chief-of-Staff of the UAE Armed Forces. Shaikh Mohammad was born in 1961 and is the third son of Shaikh Zayed. He has received his formal education at schools in Al Ain and Abu Dhabi. He joined the prestigious Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in 1979. Shaikh Mohammad held various positions and has diverse experiences from being an Officer in the Amiri Guard and a Pilot with the UAE Air Force. With his military training, his experience covers commanding armoured units, Gazelle helicopter squadron, the Air School and the Air College.
December 30
1893 - Russia signs military pact with France.
1903 - At least 600 people die in the Iroquois Theatre fire in Chicago.
1911 - Dr Sun Yat-sen is elected China’s first President.
1915 - The British armoured cruiser HMS Natal explodes and sinks near Cromarty, Scotland, at least 421 people are killed.
1933 - Romanian Prime Minister Ion Gheorghe Duca is assassinated by members of the fascist Iron Guard movement.
1940 - California’s first freeway, the Arroyo Seco Parkway connecting Los Angeles and Pasadena, is officially opened.
1941 - Winston Churchill addresses Canadian parliament.
1947 - King Michael of Romania is forced to abdicate and the country becomes a communist republic.
1949 - France transfers sovereignty to Vietnam.
1950 - Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia become Independent states in France Union.
1965 - Ferdinand Marcos is inaugurated as President of the Philippines.
1972 - The United States halts its heavy bombing of North Vietnam.
1986 - Former British prime minister Harold Macmillan dies at the age of 92.
1987 - Robert Mugabe is elected President of Zimbabwe.
1992 - Interim President Burhanuddin Rabbani is elected Afghanistan President.
1996 - A powerful bomb rips through several carriages of a train in Assam, India, killing 300 people.
1997 - Armed men massacre 412 men, women and children in four mountain villages in Algeria.
2000 - A passenger breaks into the cockpit of a British Airways flight and grabs the controls, sending the Boeing 747 into two violent nosedives before the crew regains control.
2004 - A flare lit by a concert-goer ignites the foam ceiling of a Buenos Aires nightclub, killing 175 people.
2006 - Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussain is executed.
2008 - Former Bangladeshi prime minister Shaikh Hasina Wajed wins general elections.
2012 - UAE Central Bank issues new rules, restricting mortgages to expatriates to 50 per cent of the value of property.
