2001 - One of Delhi’s oldest Sunday markets, called “Chor Bazaar” or Thieves’ Market, which has been in existence since Moghul times behind the historical Red Fort, has been closed due to security reasons. The result — a couple of thousand people in the Indian capital are now unemployed. Like the walled city, the weekly market was steeped in history. It came into existence during the reign of one of the last Moghul rulers. The bazaar was a veritable treasure trove where you could find almost everything from a needle to a second-hand computer. And most things were sold at rates far below the market price. The area, vacated by the hawkers, has since been fortified with a stone wall and is being developed into a theme park for children.
Other important events
1666 - The Great Fire of London breaks out.
1775 - The first American warship, the Hannah, is commissioned at Marblehead, Massachusetts.
1789 - The US Treasury Department is established.
1796 - The September Massacres, which killed some 1,200 people, begin when an armed band attacks prisoners while they were being transferred between jails in Paris.
1870 - Emperor Napoleon III surrenders at Sedan to encircling German troops.
1900 - Telegraph use between Germany and the United States begins.
1930 - French aviators complete the first nonstop aircraft flight from Europe to the US.
1935 - A hurricane slams into the Florida Keys, claiming 423 lives.
1945 - Japan formally surrenders to the Allies, bringing the Second World War to an end.
1969 - Ho Chi Minh, the Vietnamese Communist leader and father of the nation’s independence movement, dies of a heart attack in Hanoi.
1979 - Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, hoists a new flag in a symbolic affirmation of black power.
1996 - The Philippines government and Moro National Liberation Front sign a historical peace agreement to end 28 years of civil war.
1998 - A Swissair jetliner crashes off Nova Scotia, killing all 220 aboard.
2001 - Dr Christiaan Barnard, the South African surgeon who performed the world’s first human heart transplant, dies at the age of 78.
2008 - A massive fire breaks out in the lobby of The Atlantis hotel in Dubai.
2012 - Dubai Sports Council appoints Diego Maradona as the Emirate’s Honorary Sports Ambassador.
2013 - American Diana Nyad, 64, and an endurance swimmer, becomes the first person to swim from Cuba to Florida without a shark cage.
2014 - The UAE is named as the 12th most competitive nation globally for 2014-15.
2015 - Twelve Syrian refugees, trying to reach Greece, drown when two boats sink in Turkish waters, as three-year-old Aylan Kurdi’s lifeless body washes ashore.
