1997 - Conservative Mesut Yilmaz took over as Turkey’s Prime Minister at the head of an uneasy secularist alliance that hopes to keep the Islamists out of power after months of political chaos. He said his left-right coalition would put an end to intense arguments about the role of Islam in public life and possible intervention by the restive military. But Yilmaz still has yet to win a confidence vote and the anti-Islamist forces in parliament have already shown signs of disunity. “It will be a government that raises the profile of civilian, democratic and freedom-loving values,” Yilmaz said after his appointment by President Suleyman Demirel. His government is a minority administration, shored up by a small left-wing party.
Other important events
1652 - England declares war on the Dutch.
1859 - Frenchman Charles Blondin makes the first crossing of the Niagara Falls on a tightrope.
1876 - Serbia declares war on Turkey.
1894 - Korea declares independence from China.
1936 - Margaret Mitchell’s epic Gone with the Wind is published.
1937 - The world’s first emergency telephone number, 999, is introduced in London.
1960 - Belgian Congo becomes the independent Republic of the Congo.
1965 - India and Pakistan sign ceasefire.
1974 - The mother of American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., is killed in Atlanta.
1975 - Muhammad Ali defeats Joe Bugner in Malaysia.
1985 - The 39 American hostages seized in the hijacking of a TWA jet are released after 17 days in captivity.
1996 - Radovan Karadzic, leader of the Bosnian Serbs and a suspected war criminal, steps aside, handing over to a nationalist deputy.
1997 - China regains control of Hong Kong.
1998 - Joseph Ejercito Estrada sworn in as the President of Philippines.
2005 - The 1.5km Dubai Airport tunnel is inaugurated.
2006 - Kuwait’s Islamist-led opposition gains a parliamentary majority in historic elections.
2007 - Two men ram a blazing car into the main terminal of Glasgow Airport.
2008 - Nathalie Coughlin sets new world record of 59.03 seconds for women’s 100-metre backstroke.
2009 - A Yemenia Airways carrying 154 passengers crashes in the Indian Ocean, killing 153 people.
2010 - Benigno Simeon “Noynoy” Aquino is sworn in as the 15th President of the Philippines.
2012 - Mohammad Mursi is sworn in as Egyptian President in Cairo.
2013 - US President Barack Obama visits Nelson Mandela in his hometown.
2014 - India launches five foreign satellites.
2015 - An Indonesian military aircraft crashes into a residential area in Medan, killing all 113 on board and three on the ground.
