HIGHLIGHT
1980: Actor Steve McQueen dies
Steve McQueen, the tight-lipped hero of more than 30 films who died of a heart attack after a long struggle with cancer. The Hollywood star, who specialised in tough-guy screen roles, had pinned his hopes for life on a special course of treatment, which included injections of living cells from sheep and cattle. He underwent a three-hour operation in Mexico to remove a cancerous tumour from his abdomen. Seventeen hours after the operation, McQueen died of a heart attack. British-born actress Jacqueline Bisset, who appeared with the 50-year-old McQueen in one of his biggest hits, “Bullitt,” wept when she learned of his death. McQueen’s third wife, model Barbara Minty, 25, and his two children by his first marriage, a daughter, Terry, 21, and Chadwick, 20, were at his bedside when he died. Robert Vaughn, who appeared with McQueen in “The Magnificent Seven”, said he had watched McQueen grow in stature from the shy man he first knew.
1733 Spain and France sign the Treaty of Escurial and form an alliance against England.
1912 Russia and Outer Mongolia sign a treaty securing Mogolia’s autonomy.
1919 Socialists depose the king of Bavaria, ending the rule of one of Europe’s oldest dynasties, and proclaim a republic.
1944 US President Franklin D. Roosevelt wins an unprecedented fourth term in office, defeating Thomas E. Dewey.
1950 The king of Nepal is deposed by the state’s hereditary prime minister. The king’s 3-year-old grandson, Prince Gyanendra, is installed as ruler.
1956 British and French declare a ceasefire in Egypt.
1967 Carl Stokes is elected the first black mayor of Cleveland, Ohio.
1972 Richard M. Nixon is re-elected as US president.
1982 Turkey adopts constitution.
1983 A bomb explodes inside the US Capitol building in Washington, causing $250,000 worth of damage.
1987 Tunisian President Habib Bourguiba is replaced by Zine Al Abidine Bin Ali.
1988 Powerful earthquake just inside China’s mountainous southern border kills 600 people.
1989 East German Prime Minister Willi Stoph and the entire cabinet are forced to resign after massive pro-democracy protests.
1990 Mary Robinson becomes the first female President of Ireland.
1996 A Nigerian airliner carrying 141 people crashes into swamp land east of Lagos, killing all aboard.
1997 Kenyan President Daniel Arap Moi signs a package of reforms aimed at making Kenya a multi-party democracy.
1998 The space shuttle Discovery ends its historic nine-day mission with US Senator John Glenn and an international team of astronauts aboard.
2000 Americans choose Republican George W. Bush as president over Democratic Vice President Al Gore by 537 votes.
2005 Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori is arrested in Chile on charges involving corruption and massacres.
2006 Tajikistan’s authoritarian president, Emomali Rakhmonov, wins a new seven-year term in an election.
2011 Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega is re-elected in a landslide.
2012 Michael Jackson’s doctor is convicted of involuntary manslaughter after a trial.
2013 Russia launches into space a trio of Russian, Japanese and US astronauts carrying an unlit Olympic torch on a spacewalk to mark the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi.
