Saeed Al Tayer won a special place in powerboat racing history when he completed an unprecedented second successive Class One World Championship triumph at the helm of a sensational 1-2-3 Victory Team finish in the Emirates Grand Prix. With Puerto Rican throttle ace Felix Serralles sharing the cockpit in his Dubai-built catamaran, Al Tayer drove a well-judged race to clinch the top podium spot following an absorbing 79-minute battle with the threatening Italian raiders. The victory extended Al Tayer’s points total to an unbeatable 138, giving him a decisive 30 point cushion over his closest challenger Edoardo Polli in Bilba. He has won four races to Polli’s two. “I’m still trying to absorb the shock of having won,” said Al Tayer looking visibly exhausted by the pressures of a demanding race.
Other important events:
1616 Dutch mariner Dirk Hartog discovers Australia.
1760 Britain’s King George III succeeds his late grandfather, George II.
1874 Britain annexes Fiji islands.
1900 Transvaal is annexed formally by Britain at Pretoria, South Africa.
1909 The murder of Japan’s Prince Ito by Korean fanatics leads to Japanese dictatorship in Korea.
1936 Germany and Italy form the Rome-Berlin Axis.
1938 Japanese troops occupy Hankou and Wuhan.
1940 Benjamin Davis becomes the first African-American general in the US Army.
1944 US Navy submarine ‘USS Tang’ sinks off Taiwan after being hit by its own malfunctioning torpedo, killing 78 crew.
1956 Egypt, Jordan and Syria form a unified military command.
1966 Indonesia’s former foreign minister Subandrio is sentenced to death after a coup that wrests power from Sukarno.
1971 The UN General Assembly votes to admit mainland China and expel Taiwan.
1976 The National Theatre in London was officially opened.
1980 Egyptian President Anwar Sadat inaugurates the Ahmad Hamdi tunnel which connects mainland Egypt with the Sinai desert.
1983 US forces invade Marxist-ruled Grenada.
1985 British actor and singer Gary Holton dies.
1987 Deng Xiaoping steps down from all, but China’s top military post.
1995 Israel begins to pull out troops from Jenin after 28-year occupation.
1997 General Dennis Sassou-Nguesso is sworn in as president of the Republic of Congo.
1999 The UAE and India sign an extradition treaty in New Delhi.
2000 A Russian military plane crashes into a mountain in the Caucasus republic of Georgia and killing all 75 people aboard.
2001 Microsoft releases its Windows XP operating system.
2003 Faisal Al Fayez is sworn in as Jordan’s new prime minister.
2007 The first commercial A380 flight touches down at Sydney after a flight from Singapore.
2009 Twin suicide car bombings devastate the heart of Baghdad, killing at least 147 people.
2010 A 7.7 magnitude earthquake hits an island in Indonesia, triggering a tsunami and killing hundreds
2011 Virginia Rometty becomes first woman CEO in IBM’s 100 year history.
2012 Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara quits job to start his own national political party.
2014 A coal mine shaft collapses in north-western China, killing 16 miners.
2015 12 people are killed after a fire breaks out in a crowded karaoke bar in a city on Indonesia’s Sulawesi island.
