1993 - Steffi Graf received two 24th birthday presents nine days early yesterday when she won the French Open singles title for a third time and recaptured her world number-one status. Graf, who had lost all three of her recent French Open finals, at last put the jinx behind her when she beat fifth-seeded Mary-Joe Fernandez of the US in an exciting three-setter. The top-seeded German, who first triumphed here in 1987 and 1988, came back in a dramatic showdown to score a 4-6, 62, 6-4 win. It was Graf’s 12th ‘Grand Slam’ tournament title from 19 finals and she officially ends the 91-week reign as world number one of Yugoslavia’s Monica Seles. Graf’s smile said it all after her two-and-a-half hour triumph on a sun-draped Roland Garros centre-court. “It is true I have had some close matches in my last three finals here and I’m so happy and relieved I have turned it round,” she said.
Other important events
1827 - Turks capture the Acropolis in Athens, Greece, after a long siege.
1862 - Vietnam cedes southern part of the country, called Cochinchina, to France.
1882 - A cyclone hits Mumbai, India, and drowns 108,000 people.
1885 - British establish protectorate over Niger River region, now Nigeria.
1915 - Danish women win voting rights.
1933 - The US goes off the gold standard.
1945 - Allied Control Commission assumes control of Germany, which is divided into four occupation zones.
1953 - Denmark adopts its current constitution.
1967 - Israel launches pre-emptive air strikes against Egypt and then pushed into Jordan and Syria in the Six-Day Arab-Israeli War.
1968 - US Senator Robert F. Kennedy is shot and wounded in Los Angeles. He dies the following day.
1975 - Suez Canal in Egypt reopens to international shipping for first time since 1967.
1979 - Seychelles adopts constitution.
1984 - Egyptian prime minister Fouad Mohi Al Deen dies of a heart attack in Cairo.
1985 - Greek Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou sworn in second term.
1988 - Australian Kay Cottee becomes the first woman to sail alone nonstop around the world.
1991 - President Chadli Benjedid clamps a state of siege on Algeria for four months.
1997 - The first multi-party parliament elections are held in Algeria, but the Islamic party is banned from participating.
1999 - Nato and Yugoslav officers meet for the first time in Macedonia to discuss the withdrawal of Serb forces from Kosovo.
2002 - Israeli tanks and helicopters storms Jenin after a massive bomb killed at least 16 people on an Israeli bus.
2004 - Former US president Ronald Reagan dies at 93 after a long struggle with Alzheimer’s disease.
2006 - Serbia declares independence from the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro.
2008 - Egypt unveils a 4,000-year-old ‘missing pyramid’.
2009 - Forty-two children and many others are hurt after a fire engulfs a day care centre in northern Mexico.
2011 - Rafael Nadal wins a 10th Grand Slam and equals Bjorn Borg’s record of six French Open titles.
2013 - Fifteen commuters are hospitalised and thousands evacuated from the Moscow metro after a high-voltage electric cable caught fire.
2015 - Former Iraqi foreign minister Tareq Aziz dies in Nasiriyah, Iraq.
2017 - Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain and Egypt have cut diplomatic ties with Qatar.
