January 16, 2005: Sirleaf sworn in as first female president of Liberia

2005: Sirleaf sworn in as first female president of Liberia

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is sworn in as war-battered Liberia’s new president, carving her name into history as Africa’s first elected female head of state. Wearing a cream-coloured outfit and traditional African headdress, Sirleaf repeated the oath of office read to her by Liberian Supreme Court Chief Justice Henry Reed Cooper during an inauguration ceremony attended by thousands of civilians and scores of foreign diplomats, dignitaries and African leaders. To thunderous applause, Sirleaf pledged to “faithfully, conscientiously and impartially discharge the duties and functions of the office of president of the Republic of Liberia to the best of my abilities, so help me God.” Sirleaf takes charge of a ruined nation struggling for peace after a quarter century of coups and war. She has pledged to unite Liberia and secure the trust of sceptical foreign donours whose aid is desperately needed to rebuild. First Lady Laura Bush and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice attended the ceremony.

Other notable events

1666

France, allied with Holland, declares war on England.

1761

British take Pondicherry after siege, marking the end of French dominion in India.

1778

France recognises US independence.

1816

Portugal’s South American colony, Brazil, becomes a kingdom.

1909

British explorer Ernest Shackleton finds magnetic south pole.

1920

Georgia declares independence.

1924

Eleftherios Venizelos becomes Prime Minister of Greece for the fourth time.

1925

Leon Trotsky is dismissed from chairmanship of Russia’s Revolutionary Council.

1942

Actress Carole Lombard, 33, dies in a plane crash near Las Vegas.

1966

Major General Aguiyi Ironsi takes over power in Nigeria.

1969

Soviet cosmonauts achieve first linkup of two manned spaceships while in orbit.

1971

Swiss ambassador to Brazil, Giovanni Enrico Bucher, is freed in Rio de Janeiro after being held by kidnappers for 40 days.

1973

US and South Vietnam declare ceasefire in Vietnam War in hopes of full peace pact.

1979

Shah of Iran flees into exile.

1987

Hu Yaobang resigns as head of China’s Communist Party

1991

US led forces attack targets in Kuwait and Iraq and ‘liberation of Kuwait has begun’.

1992

El Salvador government signs a pact with rebels ending 12 years of civil war.

1992

A special high court in Greece acquits former Socialist Premier Andreas Papandreou of involvement in a $210-million bank embezzlement scheme

1995

Five-hundred motorists are stranded in the Jawahar tunnel in northern India by a snowslide that killed at least 183 people.

1996

Sierra Leone’s military ruler Valentine Strasser is ousted in a coup

2000

Ricardo Lagos is elected Chile’s first socialist president.

2001

Laurent Kabila, president of Congo, is killed in a shooting at his home.

2006

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is sworn in as Liberia’s new President. She becomes Africa’s first female elected head of state.

2008

The first batch of female Emirati pilots graduate from Khalifa Air College in Al Ain.

2009

Zimbabwe unveils its 100 trillion dollar note.

2012

At least 19 people are killed and 16 others feared trapped in the rubble of a run-down apartment block that collapsed in Beirut.

2013

A helicopter crashes into a crane on top of one of Europe’s tallest residential blocks in Central London, killing two people.

2014

Dubai Aluminium (Dubal) becomes a private joint stock company.