1993 Some 15,000 spectators looked on but sat mostly on their hands as professional boxing came back to China after being banned for more than 30 years for being too ‘bourgeois.’ “The Brawl at the Wall,” in which American Leeonzer Barber kept his World Boxing Organisation light heavyweight by beating compatriot Mike Sedillo. Barber scored an unanimous points decision to retain his crown. He picked up $60,000 for his win, small change in the world of pro boxing but a sum beyond the imagination of most Chinese peasants. It took Barber six rounds to tame Sedillo, who came out at the opening bell throwing fast combinations that had the champion retreating to the ropes. Barber said about his first fight in China, “It feels great, I hope the people in China enjoyed the show. It was a hell of a fight.” Former world heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali received a standing ovation when he appeared in the stadium. He is still a hero to millions of Chinese boxing fans.
1700 English navigator William Dampier discovers southwest Pacific island of New Britain.
1861 Russian troops fire on a crowd in Warsaw that was protesting Russian rule over Poland.
1868 Benjamin Disraeli becomes British Prime Minister for the second time
1889 Burma opens railroad from Rangoon to Mandalay.
1933 The German Reichstag (parliament) in Berlin is destroyed by fire.
1939 Britain and France recognise General Francisco Franco’s government in Spain.
1943 An methane gas explosion in Smith Mine, near Bear Creek, US, killing at least 75 people.
1967 Dominica gains independence from England.
1974 Ethiopia’s Cabinet resigns as military mutiny spreads from captured city of Asmara.
1982 Wayne B. Williams is found guilty of murdering two of 28 young blacks.
1987 Donald Regan is replaced by Howard Baker Jr as White House chief of staff.
1990 Toshiki Kaifu wins re-election as Japan’s Prime Minister
1994 A bomb explodes in a packed Maronite Catholic church in Lebanon, killing nine worshippers.
1997 A car bomb explodes outside a police station in the violence-plagued town of Apartado, Colombia, killing at least seven people and injuring 43.
1998 US lift a 35-year-old arms embargo against South Africa.
1999 Nigeria elects General Olusegun Obasanjo in the first presidential elections after 15 years of military rule.
2001 A mob of native Dayak fighters in Indonesia attack and massacre at least 118 migrants travelling under police escort.
2002 Fifty-nine people are burnt alive and 43 injured when a train catches a fire at Godhra rail station in India.
2004 Overcrowded ferry catches fire in Philippines and killing at least 139 people.
2005 Iran and Russia sign a nuclear fuel agreement.
2006 Security forces in Saudi Arabia kill five militants sought in an attempt to detonate car bombs in a huge oil complex.
2008 Masked thieves drill a tunnel into the Damiani showroom in Milan, Italy, making off with gold, diamonds and rubies worth an estimated $20 million.
2012 Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi becomes president of Yemen.
2013 An Iraqi Airways flight lands in Kuwait for the first time since Iraq’s invasion in 1990.
2015 Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov is shot dead in central Moscow.
2016 Stan Wawrinka wins the Dubai Tennis Championship.
