1998 - Mika Hakkinen (above centre) and David Coulthard (left) delivered McLaren’s second successive one-two finish in faultless style in the German Grand Prix. The pair, driving in harmony like a pair of choreographed dancers, came home separated by just four-tenths of a second to dash Michael Schumacher’s title ambitions. Schumacher struggled home fifth in his Ferrari and now trails championship leader Hakkinen by 16 points. Hakkinen’s win brought Mercedes-Benz their first victory in Germany since Juan Manuel Fangio in 1954. It was also McLaren’s first win in Germany since the late Ayrton Senna’s hat-trick at Hockenheim in 1990.
Other important events
1847 - William A. Leidesdorff launches the first steamboat in San Francisco Bay.
1870 - The first tube railway opens in London.
1892 - Charles A. Wheeler patents a prototype of the escalator.
1934 - Germany’s President Paul von Hindenburg dies, and Adolf Hitler assumes the title of Der Fuehrer.
1958 - The Arab Federation of Iraq and Jordan is dissolved.
1980 - A bomb explodes at the train station in Bologna, Italy, killing 85 people.
1999 - 226 people die in India when two trains collide head-on at Gaisal, near Kolkata.
2001 - Former Bosnian Serb general Radislav Krstic is jailed for genocide by The Hague war crimes court.
2005 - An Air France Airbus A340 jet with 309 people aboard overshoots the runway at Toronto international airport and bursts into flames after plunging into a muddy ravine.
2014 - An explosion kills at least 68 people at a factory that makes wheels in Kunshan city, China.
