2001 - Ferrari’s Michael Schumacher celebrated the 50th win of his Formula One career at the French Grand Prix and made younger brother Ralf settle for second-best. Ralf, who started on pole in a Williams for the first time in his career after his 26th birthday, led from the start, but the race on a baking hot afternoon in central France was won and lost in the pits. World champion Michael was faster in and out and his solid victory, 10.3 seconds ahead of his brother, was his sixth in 10 races this season and his fifth at MagnyCours. The German has only once failed to finish in the top two places in 2001. Schumacher’s win also left the triple world title winner just one victory short of Frenchman Alain Prost’s all-time record of 51 wins and looking certain to overtake that mark soon.
Other important events
1841 - The Colony of New Zealand is established.
1847 - US Post Office issues the first adhesive-backed stamps.
1867 - Canada becomes Great Britain’s self-governing dominion.
1890 - The Heligoland–Zanzibar Treaty is signed by Britain and Germany.
1903 - The first Tour de France bicycle race begins.
1910 - South Africa becomes a dominion of the British Empire.
1926 - British and Portuguese reach agreement on boundary between what is now Angola and Namibia.
1948 - New York International Airport is officially opened.
1960 - British Somaliland becomes Somalia.
1961 - Algerians vote overwhelmingly for independence from France.
1967 - China’s Communist Party proclaims overthrow of President Liu Shai Chi.
1969 - Britain’s Prince Charles is invested as the Prince of Wales.
1974 - President Juan Peron of Argentina dies during third term in office.
1990 - East and West Germany merge their economies.
1991 - The Warsaw Pact is officially dissolved at a meeting in Prague.
1994 - Yasser Arafat returns to the Gaza Strip to address Palestinians in the new self-rule area.
1996 - The world’s first voluntary euthanasia law takes effect in Australia’s Northern Territory.
1999 - Queen Elizabeth II opens Scotland’s first Parliament in nearly 300 years.
2000 - Actor Walter Matthau dies of a heart attack at the age of 79.
2002 - The International Criminal Court opens in The Hague.
2005 - Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman to serve on the US Supreme Court, announces her retirement.
2007 - The first Salik toll system in Dubai, at Al Garhoud Bridge and on Shaikh Zayed Road, comes into effect.
2010 - Al Maktoum International Airport is officially inaugurated in Jebel Ali.
2014 - Israel bombs dozens of sites in the Gaza Strip, striking at Hamas after finding the bodies of three missing teenagers.
2015 - US and Cuba to reopen embassies after 54 years.
