1992 - An Air Inter Airbus A320 with 96 people aboard crashed during a flight from the central French city of Lyon to Strasbourg. The plane crashed in the eastern Vosges mountains in freezing fog. Experts began examining two damaged flight recorders as Europe’s ultra-modern Airbus and French rescue services came under fire over the Air Inter crash that killed 87 people. The recorders may help explain why the domestic flight from Lyon vanished from radar screens and plunged into a steeply wooded hillside minutes short of its destination, Strasbourg. Nine people, including an unscathed 13-month-old baby girl and a nine-year-old boy, survived because the aircraft’s tail was caught between pine trees on a slope of Mount Sainte-Odile 50km south of Strasbourg.
Other important events
1841 - The island of Hong Kong is ceded to Britain.
1887 - US Senate approves leasing Pearl Harbor in Hawaii as naval base.
1921 - The new parliament in Ankara declares that the country will be called Turkey.
1936 - Britain’s King George V dies and is succeeded by Edward VIII.
1937 - Franklin D. Roosevelt is inaugurated as the President of the United States for a second term.
1942 - The Japanese invade Burma (now Myanmar).
1958 - Soviet Union threatens Greece with economic sanctions if it agrees to the installation of Nato missile bases on Greek territory.
1961 - John F. Kennedy is sworn in as the 35th President of the United States.
1969 - Richard M. Nixon is inaugurated as US President.
1980 - US President Jimmy Carter announces US boycott of Olympics in Moscow.
1981 - Iran releases 52 Americans held hostage for 444 days.
1986 - Lesotho’s military forces seize power in a bloodless coup, ending Prime Minister Chief Leabua Jonathan’s 20 years of controversial rule.
1987 - Anglican Church envoy Terry Waite disappears in Beirut, Lebanon, while attempting to negotiate the release of western hostages.
1990 - Soviet troops storm Azerbaijani capital of Baku.
1991 - In Moscow, hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens protest bloody crackdown on Lithuania and demand resignation of President Mikhail Gorbachev.
1993 - Bill Clinton is sworn in as the 42nd US President.
2001 - Vice-President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is sworn in as new Philippines President.
2002 - Two US Marines are killed when their helicopter crashes in a rugged mountain region in Afghanistan.
2003 - Former Serbian President Milan Milutinovic surrenders to the UN International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague.
2007 - Paul Casey wins the title of Abu Dhabi Golf Championship.
2009 - Barack Obama is sworn in as the 44th US President.
2016 - Armed militants storm a university in Pakistan, killing 21 people.
