First fuel-cell submarine launched
2003 - Germany’s biggest shipbuilder, US-owned HDW, unveiled what it described as the world’s first submarine to be powered by fuel-cell technology. The submarine, the first of four in the company’s new 212A class being built for the German navy, was launched from the company’s shipyard in the northern city of Kiel for testing in the Baltic Sea. The hydrogen-powered fuel-cell vessel is expected to head for Norway for deep-water testing, before returning to Kiel for final fitting and delivery. There is no effective way to regulate pollution emmissions from ships, yet the fuel cell has a bright future under the water as the best alternative to nuclear energy. The technology is designed to cut out noise and emissions.
April 7
1897 - Turkey declares war on Greece.
1945 - Japanese Prime Minister Kuniaki Koiso resigns, he is succeeded by Suzuki Kantaro.
1948 - World Health Organisation is established by UN.
1953 - Swedish diplomat Dag Hammarskjold is elected UN secretary-General.
1963 - Yugoslavia is renamed the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and Josip Broz Tito is named President for life.
1964 - IBM launches its System/360 mainframe computer.
1976 - China’s leadership deposes Deputy Prime Minister Deng Xiaoping.
1979 - Former Iranian prime minister Amir Abbas Hoveyda is executed.
1980 - US breaks diplomatic ties with Iran due to its refusal to free American hostages.
1989 - A Soviet nuclear-powered submarine with a crew of 69 catches fire and sinks in the Norwegian Sea, killing 42 crew members.
1990 - More than 150 people are killed in a fire on a North Sea ferry that the captain said was started intentionally.
1993 - Macedonia, a former republic of Yugoslavia, is allowed to join the United Nations after a compromise with Greece over the name of the country.
1994 - Civil war erupts in Rwanda after the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi are killed in a plane crash.
1999 - Yugoslav authorities seal off Kosovo’s main border crossings.
2000 - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe firm on white land.
2005 - Iraq’s parliament elects veteran Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani as president.
2007 - A Russian rocket carrying the American billionaire Charles Simonyi and two cosmonauts blasts off on a 13-day trip en route to the International Space Station.
2008 - Khalifa International Award for Date Palm is launched.
2010 - Flood and mudslides kill 148 people in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
2015 - Twenty alleged sandalwood smugglers are killed in an encounter with police in Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh, India.
2017 - A truck drives into a crowd on a shopping street and crashes into a department store in Stockholm, killing four people.
