January 2
1870 Construction begins on the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City.
1900 Open-door policy in China is announced by US Secretary of State John Hay.
1913 Turkish garrison on Chios Island surrenders to Greeks.
1919 Lithuania gains independence.
1932 Manchukuo Republic is proclaimed in Manchuria, China.
1942 Japanese capture Philippine capital Manila during the Second World War.
1955 Panamanian President Jose Antonio Remon Cantera is killed at the Franco race track in Panama City.
1967 Ronald Reagan is sworn in as governor of California
1971 Sixty-six people suffocate when crowd barrier gives way at a soccer match in Glasgow, Scotland.
1959 Luna 1, the first spacecraft to reach the vicinity of the Moon and to orbit the Sun, is launched by the USSR.
1974 US President Richard Nixon signs the federal law forcing states to set maximum speed limits of 55 miles per hour.
1982 The new Abu Dhabi International Airport is inaugurated as the first flight by Gulf Air from Bahrain lands with 58 passengers.
1988 Right-wing guerrillas ambush train near Mozambique’s western border, killing at least 22 people and injuring 71.
1993 Burhanuddin Rabbani is sworn in as Afghan president at an official ceremony in Kabul.
1997 Kofi Annan arrives at UN headquarters for the first time as secretary-general.
2001 Taiwan and China launch their first direct links since the Communists won the civil war 50 years ago.
2002 Ruling party candidate Levy Mwanawasa sworn in as Zambian president.
2006 Up to 15 people, including children, were killed or feared dead after the roof of a skating rink in southern Germany collapsed in heavy snow.
2008 Justin Gatlin, 100-metre Olympic champion is suspended for four years for a doping violation and forfeits his former 100-metre world record run.
2009 Shaikh Rashid Bin Ahmad Al Mualla, Supreme Council Member and Ruler of Umm Al Quwain, dies in London.
2013 The first phase of Dubai’s dedicated terminal for A380 superjumbos opens at Dubai International Airport
2014 A car bomb kills at least five people in Hezbollah’s stronghold in southern Beirut, Lebanon.
2016 Terrorist attacks hit Indian Air Force base in Pathankot in northern Punjab. Seven troops and four terrorists are killed.
2017 Hilarion Capucci, former archbishop in Jerusalem dies in Rome at the age of 94.
HIGHLIGHT
1993
Missiles summit begins in Russia
US President George Bush flew to Moscow to sign a nuclear arms pact that Russian leader Boris Yeltsin said was a joint Christmas present to the world. Bush left the brutal heat of Somalia, where he visited US troops at the New Year, and arrived on one of the coldest days of the Moscow winter — minus 21 Celsius. Centrepiece of the second full summit between the two men is the Start II treaty, which will cut the US and Russian nuclear arsenals by about two-thirds and scrap some of the world’s deadliest missiles. The Russian president, seeking solace on the international stage from his domestic political struggles, lavished praise on the deal at a Kremlin banquet. The treaty, which dwarfs all previous disarmament agreements, was finalised at last-minute negotiations in Geneva. The only immediate obstacle to a dramatic reduction in the number of weapons of mass destruction in the world is ratification by the Ukrainian parliament of an earlier agreement, Start I.
