1993 The new government of Premier Carlo Ciampi won a vote of confidence and with it a mandate to carry on reform of a political system discredited by scandal. The Chamber of Deputies had been expected vote in support of the former governor of the Bank of Italy. He is the first non-politician in more than four decades to lead an Italian government. The vote was 309-60, with 185 abstentions. Ciampi has promised to make reform “the first task” of his week-old government. Under his timetable, laws making Italy’s elections more direct should be in place by the summer and elections would come in the autumn. But an ambiguous response to his government by the parties in parliament shows the difficult times Italy faces as it moves from an old, discredited political system to what many hope will be an era of clean, responsive government. Ciampi reflected on his precarious position in a rebuttal speech.
Other important events
1718 The city of New Orleans in Louisiana, US, is founded.
1821 Britain takes over Sierra Leone, Gambia and the Gold Coast to form British West Africa.
1915 Nearly 1,200 people die when a German torpedo sinks the British liner Lusitania off the Irish coast.
1926 French Army and Air Force bombard sections of Damascus during an Arab revolt.
1936 British aviator Amy Johnson makes the fastest-ever solo flight from Gravesend, England to Cape Town, South Africa.
1945 Germany signs an unconditional surrender at Allied headquarters in France.
1954 Ho Chi Minh’s forces defeat the French in Vietnam marking the end of colonial rule.
1960 Leonid Brezhnev takes over as president of the Soviet Union.
1963 Communications satellite Telstar II is launched by the US.
1971 The US removes all controls on use of dollars in American transactions with China.
1975 US President Gerald Ford declares an end to Vietnam war.
1991 Tornado in Dhaka, Bangladesh kills 200 people and more than 1,000 are injured.
1994 Black and white legislators sit down together for the first time to govern South Africa.
1995 Jacques Chirac, conservative mayor of Paris, wins France’s presidency.
1996 Lee Hong-koo is chosen as a leader of ruling New Korea Party.
1998 Germany’s Daimler-Benz AG and Chrysler Corp merge, a $40 billion (Dh147.12 billion) deal which will create the world’s number five carmaker.
1999 President Joao Bernardo Vieira of Guinea-Bissau is ousted by rebels after 19 years in power.
2000 Vladimir Putin takes over as Russian president.
2002 A China Northern Airlines plane MD-82 crashes into the waters off northeastern China, killing all 103 passengers and nine crew members.
2005 A Fairchild Metroliner plane crashes into dense forest in bad weather in Australia, killing all 15 people abroad.
2011 A plane carrying up to 27 passengers and crew crashes into the sea during a downpour in eastern Indonesia, killing everyone on board.
2013 Two bomb attacks at the election rallies in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Pakistan, kill 17 people.
2015 The Sharjah Centre for Space Sciences and Astronomy opens in University City of Sharjah.
2016 Three kidnapped Spanish journalists Antonio Pampliega, Jose Manuel Lopez and Angel Sastre are released in Syria after 10 months.
2017 Sharjah Ruler issues an Emiri decree establishing Sharjah Media Council.
