1998 - Former British footballer Justin Fashanu, wanted in the United States for an alleged sexual assault on a 17-year-old youth, has been found dead. Police sources said Fashanu’s body was found hanging in a lock-up garage under a railway arch in East London, and his death was being treated as suicide. Police in the US state of Maryland said they were hunting the 37-year-old after charging him with sexual assault. The much-travelled Fashanu played in the 1980s in the English top division with various clubs, including Nottingham Forest, before a knee injury hit his career. Police said Fashanu had disappeared after spending the night of March 24 drinking beer and smoking marijuana in his Maryland apartment with five other people.
Other important events
1843 - The Provisional Government of Oregon is established.
1907 - Jules baron de Trooz forms Belgian government.
1918 - The Chevrolet Motor Company merges with General Motors (GM) and becomes a division of GM.
1926 - US military intervenes in Nicaragua.
1933 - Adolf Hitler abolishes trade unions in Germany.
1936 - Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie is exiled to Djibouti following invasion by Italy.
1942 - Japanese troops occupy Mandalay, Burma (Myanmar).
1945 - Soviet Union announces fall of Berlin during Second World War.
1952 - Jet plane passenger service is launched in the United States.
1953 - Faisal II becomes King of Iraq on his 18th birthday.
1965 - The ‘Early Bird’ satellite is used to send television pictures across the Atlantic for the first time.
1969 - British liner Queen Elizabeth 2 leaves on maiden voyage to New York.
1972 - After serving 48 years as head of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover dies in Washington at age 77.
1990 - Syrian and Egyptian leaders signal a new era of Arab unity, holding landmark talks after 13 years of mistrust over Cairo’s peace with Israel.
1994 - Nelson Mandela claims victory in South Africa’s first democratic elections.
1997 - Tony Blair becomes Britain’s youngest prime minister.
2002 - Israeli troops depart the West Bank city of Ramallah, freeing Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat after more than a month of confinement in his compound.
2010 - British actress Lynn Redgrave dies from breast cancer, at the age of 67.
2011 - Osama Bin Laden is killed in Pakistan in a firefight with US special forces.
2013 - UAE and Japan sign two major agreements for cooperation in nuclear energy and avoidance of double taxation.
2016 - Scientists discover three “potentially habitable” planets outside solar system.
2017 - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan rejoins the ruling Justice and Development Party after three years.
