Palestinian President Yasser Arafat toured West Bank cities for the first time in five months and reassured Palestinians they would win their own state, brushing aside a vow from Ariel Sharon’s Likud party never to allow it. The Palestinian president visited Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity, Jenin and Nablus. “To Jerusalem we are headed. Jerusalem is the capital of our independent state of Palestine, never mind who agrees or does not,” Arafat told a crowd in Nablus. The trip began shortly after the central committee of the right-wing Likud party voted never to accept a Palestinian state. Arafat flew into Bethlehem in a Jordanian helicopter and was thronged by supporters as he entered the Church of the Nativity. Thousands of people waited to greet him in the Jenin refugee camp. But facing a possible hostile reception by Palestinians who say they owe their loyalty to militants and demand reforms, Arafat skipped a visit to the refugee camp and went to Jenin city instead, where he spoke in the town hall.
Other important events
1809 The French army under Napoleon Bonaparte takes Vienna.
1821 Samuel Rust of New York City patents the first practical printing press in America.
1846 US declare war on Mexico.
1861 The first railway line from Karachi to Kotri is opened.
1918 US issue its first airmail stamps.
1939 The first commercial FM radio station in the US is launched, in Bloomfield.
1950 The first Formula One World Championship race is held at Silverstone, England.
1952 The Rajya Sabha (the upper house of India’s Parliament) held its first sitting.
1958 Jordan and Iraq form Arab Federation.
1962 Indonesia’s President Sukarno escapes assassination bid.
1967 Zakir Hussain becomes President of India.
1968 Peace negotiations open in Paris between United States and North Vietnam.
1981 Pope John Paul II is shot and seriously wounded in Rome by Mehmet Ali Agca.
1991 South African judge convicts Winnie Mandela of kidnapping four young men and being an accessory in their beating.
1994 Palestinian police enters Jericho on the heels of Israeli soldiers, and are mobbed by crowds celebrating the end of 27 years of occupation.
1995 British mountaineer Alison Hargreaves becomes the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest unaided.
1996 More than 450 people are killed in a few minutes of terror when a severe tornado tore through the north Bangladesh district of Tangail.
1998 US President Bill Clinton orders harsh sanctions against India for launching a second round of nuclear tests.
1999 Yugoslavia withdraws 120 of its 40,000 troops from Kosovo.
2000 The second new runway at Dubai International Airport becomes operational.
2002 The UAE and China sign an agreement on legal and judicial cooperation, which includes a treaty to extradite criminals.
2005 The troops open fires at protesters, killing 187 people in Andijan Massacre, Uzbekistan.
2008 Bombs rip through crowded parts of Jaipur in western India, killing 60.
2011 More than 80 people are killed and over 100 injured in twin suicide bomb attacks in northwest Pakistan.
2014 Over 282 miners are killed after an explosion and fire at a coal mine in Soma, western of Turkey.
2015 The Vatican recognises Palestinian statehood.
