2002 The UAE team were the undoubted stars of the GCC Golf Championship held at the Dirab Golf Club in Saudi Arabia. The four-man team of Faris Al Mazroui, Esmail Sharif, Rashid Al Abbar and Abdullah Al Mosharrekh took five golds and six silver in the six available categories. Third round gross scores of 72 (Faris), 79 (Rashid) and 80 (Esmail) meant the team also won the overall net category by a comprehensive 29 shots from second placed Bahrain. The UAE’s 54-hole total of 645 was an impressive three-under par net aggregate with all four players contributing to the team’s score at some point. In the overall individual awards for net and gross 16-year-old Faris and 14-year-old Rashid both achieved a double sweep. Faris claimed the best overall gross while Rashid won the best overall net in both the men’s and junior’s categories. In addition Faris was hailed GCC individual champion thanks to a final round of level par 72 and an overall total of 230 (78, 80, 72).
Other important events
1923 - Martial law is declared in Germany.
1928 - US agrees to recognise the Nationalist Chinese government.
1938 - Cunard launches its largest passenger liner, the ‘Queen Elizabeth’ at Clydebank, Scotland.
1939 - Warsaw surrenders to Germans after 19 days of resistance in Second World Wars
1940 - Germany, Italy and Japan sign 10-year military and economic pacts, setting up Berlin-Rome-Tokyo Axis.
1941 - The US launches the first Liberty ship, the SS Patrick Henry, in Baltimore, Maryland.
1945 - Congress Party and Muslim League win most seats in elections for India’s Central Legislative Assembly.
1959 - Typhoon batters Japanese island of Honshu, killing almost 5,000 people.
1962 - Army stages coup in Yemen and Colonel Abdullah Saleh becomes premier.
1968 - France bars Britain’s entry into European Common Market.
1970 - Jordan’s King Hussain and PLO leader Yasser Arafat meet in Cairo with 10 Arab heads of state and sign agreement ending civil war in Jordan.
1985 - Soviet Prime Minister Nikolai Tikhonov resigns for health reasons and replaced by Nikolai Ryzhkov.
1990 - Britain and Iran restore diplomatic relations.
1992 - A Nigerian military-transport plane crashes shortly after taking off from Lagos, killing all 163 people on board.
1996 - Taliban seizes control of Kabul and quickly hangs former president Najibullah.
1998 - Gerhard Schroeder wins the German chancellorship, ending Helmut Kohl’s 16 years in power.
2000 - At least 77 people died after a packed Greek passenger ferry struck a rocky islet off the Aegean holiday island of Paros and sunk within minutes.
2001 - A lone Swiss gunman kills at least 14 people in a regional parliament building before killing himself.
2003 - The US space shuttle Atlantis is docked successfully with Mir, bringing a replacement American astronaut to Russia’s troubled orbiting craft.
2008 - Chinese astronaut Zhai Zhigang completes China’s first spacewalk.
2009 - Angela Merkel wins a second term as German Chancellor.
2013 - A bomb explodes in a bus carrying government employees in Peshawar, Pakistan, killing 19 people.
2014 - An Indian court sentences Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalitha Jayaram to four years in jail in a corruption case.
2015 - England fast bowling legend Frank Tyson dies at the age of 85.
