2002 - Japan flawlessly launched its biggest rocket in a final test launch. But the country’s struggling space programme still suffered a setback in its drive to be a world aerospace leader when the mission put only one of two probes in orbit according to plan. Communication with the tiny, 600 million yen ($4.5 million or Dh16.55 million) Dash probe was lost at its scheduled deployment time, and ground control was unable to confirm that it had reached orbit. Technicians were working to determine what went wrong. The larger, 5.7 billion yen SDS-1 was put into space as planned. Despite the probe glitch, Japanese space officials scrambled to highlight the smooth performance of the rocket’s booster engines.
Other important events
1874 - British forces under Garnet Wolseley burn Kumasi, Ghana, ending Ashanti War.
1899 - Filipinos stage revolt against the US because independence is not granted.
1938 - Adolf Hitler assumes office of German War Minister and names Joachim von Ribbentrop foreign minister.
1945 - US President Franklin Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Josef Stalin begin a wartime conference at Yalta.
1948 - Sri Lanka becomes a self-governing dominion within the British Commonwealth.
1969 - Yasser Arafat takes over as Chairman of Palestine Liberation Organisation.
1972 - Britain and nine other nations recognise East Pakistan as the independent nation of Bangladesh.
1980 - Abul Hassan Bani-Sadr takes office as Iran’s first President.
1981 - Gulf Cooperation Council is formed.
1986 - Vegetable Processing and Canning Plant is inaugurated in Al Ain.
1995 - Chechen rebels shoot down first Russian jet fighter of the war, downing an Su-25 with anti-aircraft guns near Grozny.
1996 - Guatemalan President Alvaro Arzu escapes unharmed when a motorcycle carrying two men lunges towards him as he rides horseback in Antigua, Guatemala.
1997 - Nawaz Sharif clinches a landslide victory in Pakistan’s general election.
1998 - A 6.1-magnitude earthquake and subsequent tremors in Afghanistan’s remote northeast kill at least 4,500 people.
2004 - Social networking website Facebook is launched.
2008 - Iran launches research rocket and unveils its first major space centre.
2012 - Russia and China veto a UN Security Council draft resolution that backed an Arab League plan to “facilitate” a political transition in Syria
2013 - Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro casts his vote at a polling station in Havana, his first time since he stepped down due to health reasons.
2014 - Satya Nadella becomes the new CEO of Microsoft.
