1998 - A multi-billionaire Saudi prince known as one of the world’s most astute investors invested $150.5 million (Dh553.53 million) in two South Korean companies of Daewoo Corp and Hyundai Motor Co. Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal Al Saud (above left), who flew into Seoul, signed the contracts, putting the money into the purchase of convertible bonds in the two firms. Prince Al Waleed, a nephew of King Fahd, put $100 million into Daewoo and $50.5 million into Hyundai Motors. “Hyundai will expand its production capacity from its current 1.4 million units to 2.4 million within ten years,” the company’s chairman Chung Mong-Kyu said after the signing of the agreement. Daewoo group chairman Kim Woo-Choong welcomed the investment in Daewoo Corp.
Other important events
1792 - Sweden’s King Gustav III is shot by Count Anckarström at a masked ball at the Opera, he dies on March 29.
1922 - Britain recognises Kingdom of Egypt under Fouad I, with joint Anglo-Egyptian sovereignty over Sudan.
1935 - Germany repudiates disarmament clauses of Versailles Treaty that ended First World War.
1976 - British Prime Minister Harold Wilson resigns.
1978 - Former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro is kidnapped in Rome by a unit of the Red Brigades.
1985 - American journalist Terry Anderson is kidnapped by extremists in Beirut.
1991 - British film director Sir David Lean dies at the age of 83.
1993 - A huge bomb explosion in Calcutta (now Kolkata), India, brings down two apartment blocks and kills at least 45 people.
1994 - Russia agrees to phase out production of weapons-grade plutonium.
1996 - Thousands of civilians flee the Chechen town of Samashky as Russian artillery shells rain down on their homes.
1999 - The entire European Commission resigns after allegations of corruption and inefficiency.
2000 - Nepalese Prime Minister Krishna Prasad Bhattarai resigns.
2001 - The World Court awards Bahrain the largest island in a string of islands and gives Qatar the smaller ones, to settle their century-old border dispute.
2003 - Anti-war protesters demonstrate across the US, including an estimated 10,000 protesters in Chicago.
2005 - Syrian military intelligence agents leave Beirut, ending an 18-year presence in Lebanon.
2012 - Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar becomes the first batsman to score 100 international centuries.
2013 - A bus carrying Pakistani soldiers slides off a mountainous road and falls into a deep ravine in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, killing 24 soldiers.
2016 - George Tarabishi, an icon of Arab secularism, dies in Paris at the age of 77.
2017 - Federal judge in Maryland joins Hawaii in blocking US President Donald Trump’s revised travel ban.
