2001 - Japan’s third-largest consumer electronics maker, Sanyo Electric Co Ltd, and rival Sharp Corp unveiled a broad alliance to jointly develop energy saving and Net-connected home appliances. The news comes on the heels of a similar announcement little more than a month ago by Matsushita Electric Industrial Co Ltd, the world’s biggest consumer electronics maker, and Hitachi Ltd, as appliance makers seek to cut costs and share the burdens of developing next-generation products. High-tech appliances that can download recipes from the internet or exchange data with a power management centre to cut electricity use are viewed as a key source of future profits for electronics manufacturers, who face market saturation and low margins.
Other important events
1657 - Denmark attacks Sweden, but suffers a humiliating defeat the same winter.
1776 - The Continental Congress declares American independence.
1850 - American inventor B.J. Lane patents the gas mask.
1940 - Lake Washington Floating Bridge is opened, linking Seattle to Mercer Island.
1964 - US President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act against racial discrimination.
1966 - France explodes an atomic bomb at a Pacific atoll in first of series of six tests.
1976 - North and South Vietnam are reunited officially after more than 20 years of war.
1985 - British racing driver David Purley dies in plane crash at the age of 40.
1990 - A stampede in a pedestrian tunnel linking Makkah and Mina leaves 1,400 pilgrims dead.
1993 - A floating shrine sinks in Bocaue, Philippines, killing 315 worshippers.
1994 - Colombian soccer player Andres Escobar is slain in Medellin for accidentally scoring an own goal against the US.
2000 - Kuwait and Saudi Arabia reach an agreement over delineating their maritime border.
2002 - US millionaire adventurer Steve Fossett becomes the first person to circumnavigate the world solo in a balloon.
2005 - Worldwide Live8 concerts in support of tackling poverty in Africa.
2006 - World Health Organisation chooses UAE as regional centre for blood transfusion services in the Middle East.
2007 - Brahim Deby, the son of Chad’s president, is found dead of asphyxiation in the basement of his apartment building in a Paris suburb.
2008 - Colombia tricks rebels into freeing 15 hostages, including ex-presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt.
2009 - King Abdullah II of Jordan officially appoints his eldest son, Hussain, 15, as Jordan’s Crown Prince.
2010 - A fuel tanker overturns and explodes in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, killing more than 220 people.
2015 - Kim Nirvana ferry capsizes, killing at least 59 people in Philippines.
