1993 Somalis waving flowers as a sign of peace marched through the capital to show support for an accord between their country’s 15 warring factions. Chanting “Today, today, today is a great day”, they handed out purple bougainvillea flowers to American soldiers perched on armoured personnel carriers. A ragtag Somali police band played the national anthem as the crowd of about 1,500, many of them women and children, marched towards a square on the outskirts of Mogadishu. “You must put all your bullets and guns aside and take peace,” said a representative of the Somali National Alliance, dominated by Mogadishu’s principal warlord Mohammad Farah Aideed. Disarming the population was one of the main aims of US-led troops who arrived in Somalia last December to restore order and stop the wanton looting of food convoys. Delegates who signed the agreement in Addis Ababa are expected back in Somalia over the next few days.
Other important events
1703 Russian Czar Peter the Great lays foundation of city of St Petersburg.
1713 Spain agrees in Utrecht, Netherlands, to cede Gibraltar and Menorca to Britain.
1794 US president George Washington and Congress authorise the creation of the US Navy.
1865 The independent British colony of Kaffraria is incorporated with Cape Colony in South Africa.
1899 Italian Guglielmo Marconi sends the first radio signals across the English Channel.
1941 Yugoslavia’s Prince Paul is deposed in coup.
1958 Nikita Khrushchev becomes Soviet premier.
1960 Iraqi Premier General Kassem establishes the Palestine Army.
1964 Earthquake in Alaska kills 114 people.
1968 Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin is killed in a training plane crash.
1970 A severe earthquake strikes western Turkey, killing at least 1,087.
1976 South Africa withdraws its military forces from Angola.
1977 A KLM Boeing 747 crashes into a Pan Am 747 on the Canary Island of Tenerife, killing 583 people.
1989 Saudi Arabia signs a non-aggression pact with Iraq.
1991 Black commandos storm a Singapore Airlines jet and shoot dead four Pakistani hijackers.
1993 Jiang Zemin becomes president of China.
1994 The first test flight of the Eurofighter Typhoon takes place in Germany
1995 South African President Nelson Mandela fires his estranged wife, Winnie, from the government for insubordination.
1996 Cigar wins the inaugural Dubai World Cup horse race at Nad Al Sheba.
2000 Vladimir Putin is elected Russian President.
2001 An empty train riding on the wrong side of the tracks crashes into a crowded commuter train in central Belgium, killing eight.
2002 29 workers are killed in a Dubai Drydocks accident.
2007 Mitsubishi Heavy Industries launches a $1 billion (Dh3.67 billion) project to build Japan’s first passenger jet.
2008 The Terminal 5 building at Heathrow Airport in west London is opened.
2010 India successfully test-fires two nuclear-capable medium-range ballistic missiles, the Prithvi-II and the Dhanush.
2011 Pakistan releases an Indian prisoner Gopal Das, after 27 years in jail.
2014 The Philippines seals a historic peace deal with Muslim rebel group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, ending 45 years of conflict.
2016 A bomb explodes in the parking lot of a crowded park in Lahore, Pakistan, killing at least 65 people.
2017 Carrie Lam is elected Chief Executive of Hong Kong.
