2001 - Indonesia’s Megawati Sukarnoputri moved into an office at the presidential palace, two weeks after taking over from Abdurrahman Wahid, as concern over her slow progress in naming a cabinet drove the stock market down again. The former vice-president arrived at the imposing palace complex and soon afterwards met Wahid’s state secretary, Mahtoub Basyuni. Megawati, who spent her childhood in the palace as a daughter of first president Sukarno, then held talks with outgoing US ambassador Robert Gelbard. Wahid initially refused to move out of the palace, saying his ousting by the legislature on July 23 was unconstitutional. But he left on July 26 for a medical check-up in the United States. Megawati had been working from her vice-presidential office.
Other important events
1661 - Portuguese and Dutch sign treaty whereby Portugal retains Brazil and the Dutch keep Ceylon, now Sri Lanka.
1849 - Peace of Milan ends war between Sardinia and Austria.
1896 - French parliament votes for the annexation of Madagascar.
1914 - Serbia and Montenegro declare war on Germany.
1926 - American Gertrude Ederle becomes the first woman to swim across the English Channel.
1844 - French under Duc de Joinville begin hostilities against Morocco.
1942 - Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands becomes the first reigning queen to address a joint session of the US Congress.
1945 - The first atomic bomb ever used in a war is dropped by the US on Hiroshima, Japan
1965 - US president Lyndon Johnson signs Voting Rights Act.
1979 - Three Spanish Foreign Legion deserters lands at Geneva airport aboard an airliner they hijacked at gunpoint, and surrendered immediately to the police.
1990 - Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s government is ousted.
1991 - The web’s inventor Tim Berners-Lee publishes the world’s first website.
1992 - American Kevin Young smashes one of the oldest track world records by winning the men’s 400 metres hurdles at the Olympics in Barcelona
1993 - Morihiro Hosokawa is elected Japanese Prime Minister.
2001 - The Irish Republican Army agrees on gradually getting rid of its weapons, but offers no timetable on when it will start.
2005 - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is sworn in as Iranian President.
2008 - Sonia Sotomayor is confirmed by the US Senate making her the 111th and first Hispanic Supreme Court justice in the US.
2010 - UAE confirms a terrorist attack on a Japanese oil tanker in Fujairah port.
2011 - A US military helicopter crashes in Afghanistan, killing 31 special operation troops and seven Afghan commandos.
2013 - A powerful blast from a gas leak rip through a 10-storey apartment building in Rosario, Argentina, leaving at least eight dead.
