Bus services from Dubai to Abu Dhabi and Al Ain began, with 480 passengers travelling in the first three and a half hours, a Dubai Transport official said.
“They are more comfortable, safer and cleaner and the bus fares are the same as those charged by the old taxis,” said Ahmad Al Mannai, the head of the corporation’s Marketing and Public Relations Department. The fare to Abu Dhabi and Al Ain is a uniform Dh30. It is Dh5 to Sharjah. Al Mannai said the corporation had surveyed the number of old taxis and buses, and the number of passengers on those routes.
Other important events:
1533 Anne Boleyn is crowned Queen of England.
1792 Kentucky becomes the 15th state of the US.
1831 James Clark Ross discovers the North Magnetic Pole.
1868 James Buchanan, the 15th president of the United States, dies near Lancaster at 77.
1926 Ignacy Mocicki is elected president of Poland.
1935 Driving tests become compulsory for all new drivers in Britain.
1936 Ethiopia is annexed by Italy.
1937 Prince Konoye becomes Japanese prime minister.
1941 British troops occupy Bagdad, Iraq.
1943 A civilian flight from Lisbon to London is shot down by Germans during the Second World War, killing all aboard.
1955 Habib Bourguiba ends his time in exile from Tunisia.
1958 Charles de Gaulle becomes prime minister of France.
1965 236 miners are killed in the Yamano coal mine disaster in Fukuoka, Japan.
1967 The Beatles release their landmark album, ‘Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.’
1973 The Greek military regime abolishes the monarchy.
1976 Syrian forces enter Lebanon.
1979 Bishop Abel Muzorewa becomes the first black prime minister of Zimbabwe-Rhodesia (formerly Rhodesia).
1987 Lebanese Prime Minister Rashid Karami is killed in a mid-air bomb explosion.
1990 The US and the Soviet Union sign a pact to cut nuclear missiles and chemical weapons stockpiles.
1992 Russia becomes a member of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
1994 South Africa rejoins the British Commonwealth after 33 years.
1998 The European Central Bank (ECB) is established in Frankfurt, Germany
2001 Nepal’s King Birendra and Queen Aishwarya and other members of the royal family are shot dead in a palace massacre.
2002 Former South African cricket captain Hansie Cronje is killed in a cargo plane crash.
2004 Sunni tribal leader Shaikh Gazi Al Yawar is named president of Iraq.
2005 The Dutch people overwhelmingly reject the proposed EU constitution.
2008 French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent dies.
2009 An Air France plane from Rio de Janeiro crashes into the Atlantic Ocean, killing all 228 people on board.
2013 One of the biggest mosques in Asia is inaugurated in Shymkent, Kazakh.
2015 China imposes a smoking ban in public places in Beijing.
2016 The world’s longest railway tunnel, at 57km long, opens under the Swiss Alps.
2017 US President Donald Trump to announce plans to withdraw from the Paris Climate deal.