1997 - Michael Schumacher (above rear) opened up a clear 14-point lead in the battle for the world drivers’ championship yesterday with a convincing and comfortable victory for France in the French Grand Prix. Schumacher, winner of the title in 1994 and 1995 for Benetton, outclassed all his rivals and contradicted his own predictions by finishing 23 seconds clear of fellow German Heinz-Harald Frentzen in a Williams. It was Schumacher’s second successive victory, his third in four races and the 25th of his career - a total which lifts him level with Briton Jim Clark and Austrian Niki Lauda in the record books. Only Alain Prost (51), Ayrton Senna (41), Nigel Mansell (30) and Jackie Stewart (27), have won more Grands Prix.
Other important events
1863 - The First National Bank of Davenport, Iowa, opens for business, becoming the first national bank in the United States.
1913 - Bulgarian forces attack Serbian and Greek troops in Macedonia, sparking Second Balkan War.
1939 - The first commercial flight from United States to Europe is completed when the Dixie Clipper lands in Lisbon, Portugal.
1943 - US forces land on New Guinea in the Pacific in Second World War.
1949 - South Africa begins implementing apartheid.
1956 - With a leap of seven feet 5/8 inch Charles Dumas becomes the first high jumper to clear the seven-foot barrier.
1976 - Seychelles gains independence from the United Kingdom.
1974 - Isabel Peron is sworn in as the first woman President of Argentina.
1976 - Seychelles gains independence from the United Kingdom.
1992 - Mohammad Boudfiaf, head of the Algerian ruling council, is assassinated.
1995 - Lisa Clayton becomes the first British woman to sail single-handed and non-stop around the world.
2000 - An overloaded ship carrying almost 500 people goes missing in the remote parts of eastern Indonesia.
2001 - UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan is unanimously re-elected to a second term.
2006 - Female voters in Kuwait cast ballots in parliamentary elections for the first time.
2007 - India’s Sachin Tendulkar becomes the first batsman to score 15,000 One-Day International runs at Stormont in Belfast.
2008 - Spain wins the Euro Championship football trophy for the first time in 44 years.
2012 - China’s first female astronaut and two other crew members return safely to Earth after a 13-day mission to an orbiting module.
2014 - An eleven story under-construction building collapses at Moulivakkam in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, killing 61 people.
2015 - Egyptian state prosecutor Hesham Barakat killed in a bomb attack carried out in Cairo.
