1998 - The voters on both sides of the Irish border resoundingly backed a landmark peace deal designed to end 30 years of Protestant-Catholic bloodshed, referendum results showed. In Northern Ireland, 71.1 per cent voted “Yes” and in the south a massive 94.4 per cent were in favour, according to final official figures. “It’s a day for joy,” British Prime Minister Tony Blair said at his country residence Chequers, northwest of London. As Chief Electoral Officer Pat Bradley read out the result in a Belfast hall, waiting “Yes” campaigners broke into cheers and jeered at their “No” rivals.
Other important events
1876 - American baseball player Joe Borden of Boston pitches the first no-hit game in National League history.
1915 - Italy declares war on Austria-Hungary, entering the First World War.
1922 - Walt Disney incorporates his first film company Laugh-O-Gram Films.
1926 - France declares Lebanon a republic.
1945 - Winston Churchill resigns as British Prime Minister.
1949 - German Federal Republic comes into being with capital in Bonn.
1951 - China annexes Tibet.
2000 - Gulf Cooperation Council states sign the Declaration on Cooperation with European Free Trade Association in Brussels.
2003 - US Administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, officially dissolves the Iraqi Army, putting 400,000 troops out of work.
2005 - Renowned Kuwaiti pioneer Abdul Aziz Hamad Al Saqr dies at the age of 92.
2017 - James Bond actor Roger Moore dies at the age of 89.
