Lewis wins bizarre bout
1997 - Britain’s World Boxing Council heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis retained his WBC title when Henry Akinwande was disqualified in the fifth round for repeated holding. The odd outcome came two weeks after Mike Tyson was disqualified for biting off a piece of Evander Holyfield’s ear in a World Boxing Association heavyweight title fight. Akinwande’s actions were clearly not in Tyson’s league, but the embarrassing ending prompted a welter of hand-wringing and finger-pointing from fight promoter Dino Duva and Lewis’ promoter Panos Eliades. Lewis’ previous opponent, Oliver McCall, should have been fighting for a title. McCall was publicly battling alcohol problems when he fought Lewis for the vacant WBC title in February.
July 12
1856 - American adventurer William Walker declares himself president of Nicaragua.
1869 - Parliamentary system is adopted by Napoleon III of France.
1920 - The Soviet-Lithuanian Peace Treaty is signed.
1941 - British-Soviet mutual aid pact of the Second World War is signed.
1944 - Britain’s Royal Air Force becomes the first air force to use jet aircraft.
1957 - Prince Karim, 20-year-old student at Harvard University, becomes Aga Khan and leader of Ismaili Muslims.
1960 - France agrees to independence of Dahomey, Niger, Upper Volta, Ivory Coast, Chad, Central Africa and the Congo.
1962 - The Rolling Stones give their first public performance at Marquee Club in London.
1967 - Chinese Communist mobs in Hong Kong wreck government building and attack police in most violent of four days of anti-British rioting.
1971 - The Australian Aboriginal flag is flown for the first time.
1977 - The US space shuttle Enterprise completes its first free flight test.
1979 - Kiribati becomes independent from Britain.
1983 - Britain and China begin negotiations on the return of Hong Kong to China.
1990 - Boris Yeltsin resigns from the Soviet Union’s Communist Party.
1991 - At least 35 people are burnt to death at a firecracker factory in Tamil Nadu, India.
1993 - Hokkaido earthquake and tsunami strike Japan, killing at least 230 people.
1998 - France wins the football World Cup for the first time.
2005 - Prince Albert II of Monaco accedes to the throne of a 700-year-old dynasty.
2006 - Hezbollah captures two Israeli soldiers and kills eight others in a cross-border raid.
2007 - Dubai unveils Emirates NBD, a merger of Emirates Bank and National Bank of Dubai with an approximate market capitalisation of Dh41.3 billion.
2008 - Syria and Lebanon agree to set up diplomatic ties.
2009 - After 28 years of waiting, Mark Webber wins the Formula One German Grand Prix.
