2002 - At least 60 people died and scores were missing after a huge fire swept through an office block heavily populated by foreign companies in Vietnam’s southern hub of Ho Chi Minh City. Firefighters struggled for five hours to put out the blaze at the Saigon International Trade Centre in District One, the heart of the city. Eyewitnesses described how office workers trapped inside the six-storey building had jumped from windows to escape the inferno in Vietnam’s vibrant business and investment capital. Nguyen Van Niem, a Foreign Ministry official in Ho Chi Minh City, said “no evidence has been found that this was related to terrorism”. Six people also died from their injuries in hospital, according to local television reports in Ho Chi Minh City.
Other important events
1863 - International Committee of the Red Cross is founded in Geneva.
1881 - Japan’s first national political party is founded.
1901 - US President William McKinley’s assassin, Leon Czolgosz, is executed.
1918 - Croatian parliament severs all ties with Austria-Hungary.
1923 - Republic of Turkey is proclaimed, with Mustafa Kemal Ataturk as its first President.
1929 - New York stock market collapses, marking “Black Tuesday”.
1936 - General Bakr Sidqi overthrows Iraqi government.
1942 - Germans massacre 16,000 Jews in Pinsk, Russia.
1956 - The city of Tangier is reintegrated into Morocco.
1960 - Boxer Muhammad Ali wins his first professional fight, beating Tunney Hunsaker.
1962 - US lifts its naval quarantine of Cuba at the request of UN Secretary-General U. Thant.
1972 - Militants hijack a German airliner and gain release of three people seized in massacre at Munich Olympics.
1982 - Spain’s Socialist Workers’ Party sweeps to victory ending 43 years of conservative rule.
1987 - Woody Herman, American jazz musician, singer and bandleader, dies.
1998 - Around 60 young people die when fire and choking fumes engulf an overcrowded Halloween disco in Sweden.
1999 - Dubai Internet City, the world’s first free trade zone for e-business, is launched in Dubai.
2001 - Dubai Government’s portal is launched at a glittering ceremony.
2005 - More than 100 people are killed when a passenger train derails and topples into floodwaters in Nalgonda, Andhra Pradesh.
2006 - A Nigerian airliner crashes after taking off from the airport in Abuja, killing 96 passengers.
2008 - A 6.4-magnitude earthquake in southwestern Pakistan kills more than 300 people.
2013 - Turkey opens the world’s first underwater rail link between two continents, connecting Asia and Europe.
2015 - The Middle East’s first Apple stores open in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
