Today in History
May 18
1642 The Canadian city of Montreal is founded.
1804 Napoleon Bonaparte is proclaimed emperor of France.
1914 The Mariner becomes the first cargo-carrying steamboat to pass through the Panama Canal.
1954 The European Convention of Human Rights goes into effect.
1967 The United Nations agrees to Egyptian demands to withdraw forces from the Gaza Strip.
1969 Apollo 10 launches on a mission that serves as a dress rehearsal for the first moon landing.
1974 India tests a nuclear bomb for the first time, in the deserts of Rajasthan.
1991 China suffers one of the biggest floods in its history, with at least 200,000 people killed.
1994 Israel withdraws from the Gaza Strip, ending 27 years of occupation.
1998 The US and the European Union strike a deal to waive sanctions over trade with Iran, Libya and Cuba.
2005 The Palestinian legislature approves a new electoral law to elect two-thirds of the legislators in district voting.
2015 The Dubai World Trade Centre is established as a free zone.
2016 Mitsubishi Motors president Tetsuro Aikawa resigns over a fuel-cheating scandal.
HIGHLIGHT
1998
French businessman buys Christie’s
French businessman and art lover Francois Pinault bought world renowned auction house Christie’s International, ending 230 years of British ownership for a business which handles the art treasures of the world. Pinault, a long-standing Christie’s client who left school at 16 to work in his father’s timber yards before building his fortune in the French paper industry, made an offer through his holding company Artemis valuing the group at $1.2 billion. Art dealers and cash-strapped aristocrats down the centuries have entrusted Christie’s auction rooms in London’s West End with the sale of treasures ranging from Van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’ to Princess Diana’s evening dresses. Founded in 1766 by Scot James Christie, the group survived a direct hit on its London headquarters from a Second World War German bomb, and went on to open auction rooms in all the major markets in the world.
