1787 - The Constitutional Convention is convened in Philadelphia, in what is to become the United States of America.
1810 - Argentina begins a revolt against Spain.
1812 - Earthquake destroys Caracas, Venezuela.
1911 - Revolution in Mexico overthrows President Porfirio Diaz.
1915 - China is forced to accept a Japanese ultimatum regarding rights and privileges.
1935 - Jesse Owens of Ohio State University breaks three world records at an athletics meet in Michigan.
1944 - Stuart Perry of New York gets a patent on the gasoline engine.
1946 - Jordan gains independence from Britain and Abdullah becomes King.
1963 - The Organisation of African Unity is formed in Addis Ababa.
1966 - Peru and Argentina football fans fight in Lima, 248 die.
1967 - Celtic became the first British football team to win the European Cup.
1979 - An American Airlines DC-10 loses an engine shortly after take-off from Chicago’s O’Hare airport and plunges to earth killing 273 people.
1981 - Gulf Cooperation Council is formally launched in Abu Dhabi.
1985 - Kuwaiti Emir Shaikh Jaber Al Ahmad Al Sabah escapes an assassination attempt.
1989 - Mikhail Gorbachev is elected Executive President of the Soviet Union.
1996 - Bulgaria’s King Simeon II returns home after 50 years in exile.
1997 - Polish voters adopt a constitution that removes the last traces of communism.
2000 - A lone gunman hijacks a Philippine Airlines domestic flight and divests passengers of their valuables, before making a mid-air exit from the aircraft at 6,000 feet.
2002 - A China Airlines passenger jet carrying 206 passengers and 19 crew members breaks up in the air and crashes into the Taiwan Strait.
2003 - Nestor Kirchner becomes President of Argentina.
2005 - A massive power outage caused chaos in Moscow, stranding around 20,000 people in underground metro tunnels.
2007 - Google Street View was launched in the US.
2008 - Michel Sulaiman is sworn in as Lebanon’s President.
2010 - UAE signs a deal with South Korea to build four nuclear plants in the UAE.
2011 - A revamped e-government web portal is launched in Abu Dhabi.
2013 - Heavily-armed Maoist rebels kill 24 people, including Congress leaders, after ambushing a convoy in Chhattisgarh, India.
2015 - The UAE establishes the first space research centre in Al Ain.
2016 - Greece’s creditors reaches an agreement that will allow the release of $11.5 billion of aid.
HIGHLIGHT
2008
Sulaiman sworn in as Lebanese president
Lebanon’s new president Michel Sulaiman appealed for unity as he was sworn in, as a first step towards defusing a political feud that threatened to plunge the nation into a new civil war. “Let us unite... and work towards a solid reconciliation,” the former army chief said after being elected by parliament. “We have paid dearly for our national unity. Let us preserve it hand-in-hand.” Celebratory shots were fired into the air and car horns hooted as crowds of people, cheering and waving Lebanese flags, poured into the streets of Beirut and Sulaiman’s hometown of Amsheet. Sulaiman was elected by 118 votes in a much-delayed parliament session attended by Arab and Western dignitaries that followed a deal hammered out in Qatar between the rival Lebanese politicians. After Sulaiman was sworn in, the government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora resigned in line with the constitution but will stay on in a caretaker role.
