Formula One world champion Nigel Mansell notched his second victory of the IndyCar season and his first ever on an oval track when he won the Miller Genuine Draft 200 at the Milwaukee Mile. Mansell swept past pole-sitter Raul Boesel with 18 laps remaining and held off the Brazilian the rest of the way to win in his LolaFord Cosworth at an average speed of 178.584km/h. Boesel finished second, just 0.56 seconds behind the Briton in another Lola-Ford Cosworth. Indianapolis 500 winner Emerson Fittipaldi finished third in a Penske-Chevrolet, ahead of Bobby Rahal in a Lola-Chevrolet. Mansell, who won his first Formula One title for Williams last year before joining the NewmanHaas IndyCar team, opened the IndyCar season with a victory in an Australian street race. “This is marvellous. The team did such a fantastic job,” said Mansell, who leads the IndyCar series with 70 points after five races.
Other important events:
1523 Gustav Vasa is crowned king of Sweden, establishing Swedish independence from Denmark.
1809 Sweden declares independence, with its constitutional monarchy being established.
1889 The Great Seattle Fire, in Washington, US, destroys the entire central business district of the city.
1925 Walter Percy Chrysler establishes the Chrysler Corp.
1944 Allied troops land in Normandy on D-Day to begin the liberation of Western Europe from Nazi Germany.
1966 Black activist James Meredith is shot and wounded while walking along a Mississippi highway.
1967 Egyptians close the Suez Canal during Six-Day Arab-Israeli War.
1972 A coal mine explosion in Rhodesia kills 431 workers.
1973 West Germany completes the ratification of a treaty to normalise its relations with East Germany.
1982 Israel invades Lebanon with 60,000 troops to drive out the Palestine Liberation Organisation.
1984 Indian troops raid the Golden Temple complex in Amritsar, Punjab, to flush out terrorists.
1985 Israel withdraws its troops from Lebanon after a three-year occupation.
1993 At least 460 refugees, most of them women and children, are massacred in Liberia.
1994 Brian Lara rewrites cricket record books with the world’s highest first-class innings of 501 not out.
1994 A Chinese airliner on a domestic flight from the tourist centre of Xian crashes, killing all 160 people on board.
1996 Turkish Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz resigns.
1997 Close allies of President Liamine Zeroual sweep to victory in Algeria’s new parliament.
2001 Dubai Police launch e-government services.
2002 Famous Egyptian cinema director Radwan El Kashef dies at the age of 50.
2005 Sharjah Ring Road is inaugurated.
2006 Bahrain names Mona Jasem Al Kawari as judge, the first woman to hold such a post in the GCC region
2007 Cyclone Gonu lashes the UAE’s east coast.
2008 Bombs rip through two buses in Sri Lanka, killing 23 people.
2012 Kuwait’s Emir refuses to sign a bill passed by parliament stipulating the death penalty for major religious offences.
2013 A new Palestinian government, headed by prime minister Rami Hamdallah, is sworn in Ramallah.
2016 26-year-old Army officer Deshauna Barber is crowned Miss USA.
2017 Arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi dies at the age of 82.
