February 5, 1997: Nawaz Sharif’s party sweeps polls

Nawaz Sharif’s party sweeps polls

1997 - Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif clinched a landslide victory in Pakistan’s general election, inflicting a humiliating defeat on his bitter rival Benazir Bhutto. His Pakistan Muslim League won 134 seats in the 217-member National Assembly against 17 secured by Benazir’s Pakistan People’s Party. Sharif, 48, will be the country’s prime minister for the second time after being ousted in 1993.

February 5

1782 - Spanish forces capture Minorca Island from the British.

1885 - Congo is established as a personal possession of Belgium’s King Leopold II.

1917 - Mexico becomes a republic.

1936 - Charlie Chaplin’s film Modern Times is released.

1940 - Glenn Miller and his Orchestra record the hit song Tuxedo Junction.

1958 - Jamal Abdul Nasser becomes the first President of the new United Arab Republic, a short-lived union of Syria and Egypt.

1971 - Apollo 14 astronauts Alan B. Shepard and Edgar D. Mitchell make a successful landing on the moon.

1976 - Earthquake in Guatemala takes almost 23,000 lives.

1984 - Lebanese Prime Minister Shafiq Wazzan resigns.

1985 - Spain opens Gibraltar border after 16 years.

1989 - Kabul is placed under martial law, following the withdrawal of virtually all Soviet troops from the city.

1991 - Iraq, under attack by the United States and its allies, suspends fuel sales to its citizens.

1993 - Italian police says its has arrested suspected gang boss Giuseppe Montalto, believed to be one of the leading figures in the Sicilian Mafia.

1999 - King Hussain of Jordan is pronounced clinically dead.

2002 - Interim Afghan Prime Minister Hamid Karzai raises the country’s new national flag in a colourful ceremony.

2003 - North Korea announces its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon has resumed operations.

2005 - Gnassingbe Eyadema, the President of Togo, dies.

2006 - A bomb explosion rips through a passenger bus in a province of southwestern Pakistan, killing at least 13 people.

2010 - Northern Ireland reaches landmark deal with Britain to transfer key remaining powers.

2011 - Pakistan cricketers Salman Butt, Mohammad Amer and Mohammad Asif are banned for at least five years by the International Cricket Council.

2013 - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrives in Cairo, marking the first visit to Egypt by an Iranian president since Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution.

2014 - Portuguese football legend Eusebio dies at the age of 71.