European Community ministers signed a treaty on political and monetary union, hailing it as a landmark in Europe’s history. The Treaty on European Union was signed by foreign and finance ministers of the EC’s 12 member states at a ceremony at the Provinciehuis in Maastricht, wedged between Germany and Belgium. The treaty cements the EC’s plans to create a superbloc with a single market, one currency and a unified voice on the world stage. The ministers were flanked by European Commission President Jacques Delors, European Parliament President Egon Klepsch and the prime ministers of Portugal, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. “This is a historic moment for the 300 million-plus inhabitants of the European Community, a moment marked by satisfaction and hope,” said Dutch Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers. The 189-page treaty sets out in nine official languages EC’s plans to achieve a single currency in some member states by 1999 at the latest.
Other important events:
1863 HMS Orpheus is wrecked near New Zealand, killing 190 people.
1915 The first wireless telegraph message is sent from a moving train to a railway station.
1947 Arabs and Jews reject British proposal on dividing Palestine.
1962 Coal mine explosion in Saarbruecken, Germany, kills 298 miners.
1964 Rock ‘n’ roll’s British invasion begins when the Beatles arrive in New York for their first American tour.
1967 Sixty-two people die when bushfires ravage Hobart area of Tasmania, Australia.
1969 Nigerian planes bomb and strafe crowded market in a village in rebellious Biafra, killing more than 200 people.
1971 Apollo 14 astronauts speed towards splashdown in Pacific Ocean after their visit to the moon.
1974 Britain grants independence to small Caribbean island of Grenada.
1984 Space shuttle astronauts Bruce McCandless II and Robert L. Stewart go on first untethered spacewalk.
1986 Haiti’s president for life Jean-Claude Duvalier goes into exile.
1991 Jean-Bertrand Aristide is sworn in as Haiti’s first democratically elected President.
1996 A charter jetliner carrying German tourists home from the Caribbean crashes in Dominican Republic, killing all 189 people on the board.
1999 King Hussain dies of cancer after nearly half a century on the throne of Jordan.
2000 Stipe Mesic is elected president of Croatia.
2001 Former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide returns to power in Haiti.
2002 The Mexican government releases General Jose Francisco Gallardo.
2003 A car bomb explodes at a club in Bogota, Colombia, killing at least 36 people and wounding more than 160.
2004 Sri Lanka’s President Chandrika Kumaratunga dissolves Parliament.
2005 British yachtswoman Ellen MacArthur breaks the solo round-the-world sailing record in a time of 71 days, 14 hours, 18 minutes and 33 seconds.
2006 Shaikh Nawaf Al Ahmad Al Sabah is appointed as Crown Prince of Kuwait.
2010 Laura Chinchilla is elected the first female President of Costa Rica.
2012 Mohammad Nasheed, the first democratically elected president of the Maldives, resigns after a mutiny by the police.
2013 Fifty-three people are killed in a high-speed collision between a bus and a truck in Zambia.
2015 Hakan Fidan, head of Turkey’s intelligence service, resigns to run in a parliamentary election.
2016 The Museum of Future opens in Dubai.
