Big win for Mongolia’s ex-Communist rulers
2000 - Mongolia’s former communist rulers won a landslide victory in parliamentary elections and immediately vowed not to return to their old Soviet ways but to push ahead with free market reforms. An Election Commission official said the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party (MPRP) won 72 out of 76 seats in parliament, known as the Great Hural. MPRP leader and probable prime minister, charismatic 42-year-old Nambariin Enkhbayar, cele-brated at dawn by cracking open a bottle and issuing a heartfelt plea to the world not to judge his party by its name. “People in the world should understand that we are not Communist monsters. We are not going to turn back the clock, the only way forward is through democracy,” Enkhbayar said.
July 3
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 the 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.
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.
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 opens at Jebel Ali.
1986 - Emir of Kuwait dissolves parliament.
1988 -USS Vincennes fires a missile that downs an Iran Air jetliner, killing 290 civilians.
1996 - Boris Yeltsin decisively defeats Communist challenger Gennady Zyuganov for a second term as Russian President.
2000 - Vicente Fox becomes President of Mexico.
2005 - Renault’s Fernando Alonso celebrates a runaway win in the French Grand Prix.
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 storms to victory in elections.
2013 - Egypt’s military ousts the nation’s Islamist president Mohammad Mursi.
