Singapore founding father Lee quits
1990 - Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew resigned, ending his reign as the world’s longest-serving prime minister and giving way to the man he picked to succeed him, Goh Chok Tong. Lee, who swept to power on a wave of anti-colonial feeling in 1959, masterminded the island’s transformation from a tiny colonial outpost to a thriving metropolis. The resignation of the only prime minister independent Singapore has known was greeted with barely a ripple. Lee, 67, told a party congress on November 18 he had not designated his politician son as his successor because Lee Hsien Loong was very much like him and “Singapore has seen and heard enough of me for 31 years. A break will be good for Singapore”.
November 26
1857 - First Australian Parliament opens in Melbourne.
1865 - Lewis Carroll’s novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is published.
1922 - King Tutankhamen’s tomb is opened in Egypt.
1943 - The HMT Rohna, a British transport ship carrying US soldiers, is hit by a German torpedo off Algeria, killing 1,138 people.
1949 - India adopts constitution as federal republic within British Commonwealth.
1979 - A Pakistan International Airlines plane catches fire and crashes shortly after takeoff from Jeddah, killing all 156 people on board.
1986 - Iranian missile slams into crowded residential district of Baghdad, killing 48 civilians.
1987 - Powerful typhoon whips across Philippines, killing 270 people and damaging or destroying 14,000 homes.
1994 - The Early Intervention Centre in Sharjah is officially inaugurated.
1995 - Rebel jets bomb Kabul, the Afghan capital, killing 35 people and wounding 140 others.
2000 - Florida certifies George W. Bush as the winner of the state’s electoral votes for the US presidential election.
2005 - 67-year-old daredevil Indian tycoon Vijaypat Singhania claims a new world altitude record by flying a hot air balloon to the boundary of space, climbing to nearly 70,000 feet.
2007 - Sultan Ahmad Bin Sulayem marks the debut of DP World at the Dubai Financial Market.
2008 - Terrorists attack various locations in Mumbai, killing more than 195 people over four days.
2010 - Fujairah enters the Guinness Book of Records for the highest sword throw and the biggest group of traditional Razfa dancers.
