Russian President Boris Yeltsin raced to a strong lead in a crucial re-election battle that pitted his democratic reforms against a Communist opponent determined to return to the Soviet era. A double-figure lead in the first returns put him firmly on course for four more years in the Kremlin. With 55 per cent of the vote counted, Yeltsin had 54.5 per cent compared to 39.5 per cent for Communist challenger Gennady Zyuganov. About 6 per cent of voters went for the third option of rejecting both candidates. The results came mainly from the Far East and Siberia, areas that have not given Yeltsin much support in the past. Yeltsin appealed for national reconciliation and hinted he would bring some opposition figures into his government after an emphatic election victory.
Other important events:
1583 Russia’s Czar Ivan the Terrible kills his son Ivan in a fit of rage.
1608 Samuel de Champlain, French explorer, lays the foundation of Canadian city of Quebec.
1819 The first bank in the US, The Bank for Savings, opens for business in New York City.
1866 Prussians defeat Austrians at Battle of Koenigraetz.
1881 Britain persuades Turkey to sign convention with Greece.
1896 Abdul Hamid II, Sultan of Turkey, agrees to introduce self-government in Crete.
1915 US Military forces occupy Haiti, remain until 1934.
1920 William Tilden becomes the first American tennis player to win the men’s singles title at Wimbledon.
1944 Soviet forces retake Minsk from Germans, capturing 100,000 troops.
1950 US and North Korean troops clash for first time in Korean War.
1971 Indonesians vote in their country’s first national election in 16 years.
1979 The steam station and water desalination complex is opened at Jebel Ali.
1986 Emir of Kuwait dissolves parliament.
1987 Richard Branson and Per Linstrand parachute from their balloon into the Irish sea after riding the jet-stream more than 3,000 miles across the Atlantic in a record breaking flight.
1988 USS Vincennes fires a missile that downs an Iran Air jetliner, killing 290 civilians.
1993 Ousted Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide signs an accord in New York with the Haitian military that will return him to office.
1997 Western Samoa votes to simplify the country’s name to Samoa.
2000 Vicente Fox becomes president of Mexico.
2002 A US gunship fires on civilian targets after mistaking celebratory gunfire at a wedding for hostile fire in Oruzgan Province, Afghanistan, killing 44 people.
2005 Renault’s Fernando Alonso celebrated a runaway win in the French Grand Prix.
2006 A speeding underground train run off the tracks and overturns in Valencia, Spain, killing 43 people.
2007 Sterling rises to its highest level against the dollar in a quarter of a century.
2009 The 103rd-floor skydeck of the Sears Tower in Chicago is opened to the public.
2011 Allies of Thailand’s fugitive ex-leader Thaksin Shinawatra storm to victory in elections.
2013 Egypt’s military oust the nation’s Islamist president Mohammad Mursi.
2015 Solar Impulse 2 makes history by flying non-stop for five days and nights from Nagoya, Japan to Hawaii.
