1991 - Pioneer US airline Pan Am Corp said it would cease flight operations immediately, ending 64 years of service. The airline, which entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in January, was unable to restructure itself after Delta Air Lines Inc withdrew its financial support this week. “Without funding, we simply would not have the cash resources to provide the stability the new company would require for its employees and customers,” Pan Am president and chief executive Russel Ray said in a prepared statement. The once powerful airline stopped flying after a contentious bankruptcy court hearing in which Delta said it would not put up any more money to keep Pan Am in the air. Delta had bought Pan Am’s northeastern shuttle and most of its remaining trans-Atlantic routes.
Other important events
1816 - James Monroe of Virginia is elected the fifth President of the United States.
1842 - Spanish soldier-politician Baldomero Espartero bombards Barcelona and crushes revolt.
1877 - Thomas Edison invents phonograph.
1893 - British and French reach an agreement on Siam, now Thailand.
1908 - Haiti’s president General Alexis Nord flees from military coup.
1945 - The Senate approves US participation in the United Nations.
1963 - Aldo Moro becomes Prime Minister of Italy
1971 - Indian troops launch attacks in East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, and hit key airfields.
1972 - Government of Honduras is overthrown in a military coup.
1977 - Jean-Bedel Bokassa, ruler of Central African Republic, crowns himself emperor.
1981 - The first Grand Prix event is held at Hyatt Regency racetrack in Dubai.
1983 - American fighter jets strike Syrian anti-aircraft positions in Lebanon.
1984 - A gunman with a Jordanian passport kills a Jordanian diplomat in Bucharest, Romania, as he leaves a hotel
1988 - Carlos Andres Perez elected to a second term as President of Venezuela.
1990 - Bangladesh President Hussain Mohammad Ershad resigns.
1991 - Journalist Terry Anderson, the last American hostage in Lebanon, is released in Beirut.
1995 - A Cameroon Airlines jet crashes while trying to land in Yaounde, killing at least 60 people.
1996 - Nasa launches a spacecraft to Mars carrying the first-ever interplanetary rover.
2001 - The ex-wife of former South African president F. W. de Klerk, Marike, is found murdered in her home near Cape Town.
2003 - Bosnian Serb General Stanislav Galic gets 20 years for commanding a deliberate two-year campaign of terror against civilians of Sarajevo.
2005 - Incumbent Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev wins a new seven-year term in presidential elections.
2011 - Veteran Bollywood actor Dev Anand dies in London.
