2002 - The Fairmont Dubai, an Dh800 million five-star hotel, was inaugurated by General Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and UAE Minister of Defence. Also present were the co-owners of the hotel, Dr Shaikh Sultan Bin Khalifa Al Nahyan, Chief of the Abu Dhabi Crown Prince’s Court, and Saudi Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal Bin Abdul Aziz, chairman of Kingdom Holdings Co, who owns 16.5 per cent of the Fairmont chain. Dr Shaikh Sultan said Shaikh Mohammad and the Saudi prince discussed new projects in Dubai including The Palm. Dr Shaikh Sultan and Prince Al Waleed discussed and drew outlines for possible joint investments in Abu Dhabi’s tourism sector. The 34-storey hotel has 394 rooms and extensive business and leisure facilities.
Other important events
1861 - The first transcontinental telegraph message is sent as Justice Stephen J. Field of California transmits a telegram to US President Abraham Lincoln.
1882 - Dr Robert Koch discovers the germ that causes tuberculosis.
1901 - Anna Edson Taylor becomes the first person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel and live to tell about it.
1916 - American car manufacturer Henry Ford begin paying his woman employees an equal wage to men.
1922 - Irish Parliament adopts a constitution for an Irish Free State.
1929 - Black Thursday’ marks the start of the stock market crash.
1931 - The George Washington Bridge connecting New York to New Jersey opens.
1935 - Italy invades Ethiopia.
1945 - The United Nations is formally established, replacing the League of Nations.
1949 - The cornerstone of the United Nations Headquarters is laid in New York City.
1964 - Zambia gains independence from Britain.
1968 - Iran and Saudi Arabia sign agreement delineating Gulf territorial claims.
1970 - Leftist Salvador Allende is elected president of Chile.
1980 - Polish government legalises independent labour union Solidarity.
1987 - A bomb ripped through a Pan-Am airline sales office in Kuwait.
1995 - A strong earthquake jolts the southwestern Chinese province of Yunnan, killing at least 14 people.
1997 - Russia signs a landmark border deal with Lithuania.
2002 - Bahrain becomes the second Gulf state to have a directly elected legislature.
2003 - British Airways Concorde makes its last commercial flight, landing at Heathrow Airport, London.
2004 - A Russian-US crew returns safely to Earth from the International Space Station.
2005 - Three suicide bombers stages a coordinated attack on a Baghdad hotel complex used by foreign journalists, killing at least 20 people,
2007 - China launches its first lunar probe.
2009 - At least 15 people died and many more were injured after passenger trains collided in the Giza, Egypt.
2011 - Sharjah Media Centre is inaugurated.
2014 - Alan Eustace jumps off from the balloon near the top of the stratosphere, falling faster than the speed of sound and breaking the world record set on skydiving.
2015 - Maldivian authorities arrests the Vice-President Ahmad Adeeb over an alleged plot to assassinate President Abdullah Yameen.
2016 - India forces kills at least 21 Maoists in shoot-out on the borders of Odisha and Andhra Pradesh states.
