1992 - A United States jury found Pan American World Airways guilty of wilful misconduct in a case filed by relatives of people killed in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. After three days of deliberations, the jurors in Brooklyn federal court found Pan Am guilty of charges stemming from allegations of lax security in the airline’s baggage handling system. Parents of some of the victims, who have been attending the trial since it began on April 27, hugged and wept when the verdict was announced. “Finally, there is some justice,” one woman said in the courtroom hallway. The families’ lawyers said terrorists smuggled a bomb inside a cassette player onto the plane, which exploded on December 21, 1988.
Other important events
1866 - Edson Clark from Massachusetts is granted the first US patent for an indelible pencil.
1890 - Wyoming becomes the 44th state of the United States.
1913 - Romania declares war on Bulgaria.
1923 - Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini dissolves all non-fascist political parties in order to secure his dictatorship.
1962 - Telstar satellite is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, bringing live television from the US to Europe for the first time.
1967 - New Zealand adopts decimal currency and switches from the New Zealand pound to the New Zealand dollar.
1973 - Bahamas gains independence after three centuries of British rule.
1985 - Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior is bombed by French saboteurs in Auckland.
1990 - Russia’s Mikhail Gorbachev is re-elected leader of the Soviet Communist Party.
1991 - Boris Yeltsin is sworn in as the first elected President of Russia.
1992 - Ousted Panamanian ruler Manuel Noriega is sentenced to 40 years in federal prison for drug trafficking.
1993 - Melchior Ndadaye becomes President of Burundi.
1995 - Myanmar’s military junta frees Aung San Suu Kyi without condition after nearly six years under house arrest.
1996 - Unmanned Galileo spacecraft captures stunning close-up pictures of Ganymede, Jupiter’s biggest moon.
1999 - Six nations fighting in Congo’s civil war sign a long-awaited peace accord.
2000 - A mountain of garbage loosened by rain collapses and bursts into flames in Manila, Philippines, killing 216 people.
2007 - Radical cleric Abdul Rashid Gazi is shot dead as Pakistani troops storm Islamabad’s Red Mosque after a week-long standoff. At least 50 rebels and eight soldiers are killed.
2014 - UAE opens new consulate in Canada.
2015 - Egyptian-born actor Omar Sharif dies in Cairo at the age of 83.
2016 - Portugal wins Euro 2016, defeating host nation France 1-0 in the final.
