Nawaz Sharif’s party sweeps polls
1997 - Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif clinched a landslide victory in Pakistan’s general election, inflicting a humiliating defeat on his bitter rival Benazir Bhutto. His Pakistan Muslim League won 134 seats in the 217-member National Assembly against 17 secured by Benazir’s Pakistan People’s Party. Sharif, 48, will be the country’s prime minister for the second time after being ousted in 1993.
February 5
1782 - Spanish forces capture Minorca Island from the British.
1885 - Congo is established as a personal possession of Belgium’s King Leopold II.
1917 - Mexico becomes a republic.
1936 - Charlie Chaplin’s film Modern Times is released.
1940 - Glenn Miller and his Orchestra record the hit song Tuxedo Junction.
1958 - Jamal Abdul Nasser becomes the first President of the new United Arab Republic, a short-lived union of Syria and Egypt.
1971 - Apollo 14 astronauts Alan B. Shepard and Edgar D. Mitchell make a successful landing on the moon.
1976 - Earthquake in Guatemala takes almost 23,000 lives.
1984 - Lebanese Prime Minister Shafiq Wazzan resigns.
1985 - Spain opens Gibraltar border after 16 years.
1989 - Kabul is placed under martial law, following the withdrawal of virtually all Soviet troops from the city.
1991 - Iraq, under attack by the United States and its allies, suspends fuel sales to its citizens.
1993 - Italian police says its has arrested suspected gang boss Giuseppe Montalto, believed to be one of the leading figures in the Sicilian Mafia.
1999 - King Hussain of Jordan is pronounced clinically dead.
2002 - Interim Afghan Prime Minister Hamid Karzai raises the country’s new national flag in a colourful ceremony.
2003 - North Korea announces its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon has resumed operations.
2005 - Gnassingbe Eyadema, the President of Togo, dies.
2006 - A bomb explosion rips through a passenger bus in a province of southwestern Pakistan, killing at least 13 people.
2010 - Northern Ireland reaches landmark deal with Britain to transfer key remaining powers.
2011 - Pakistan cricketers Salman Butt, Mohammad Amer and Mohammad Asif are banned for at least five years by the International Cricket Council.
2013 - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrives in Cairo, marking the first visit to Egypt by an Iranian president since Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution.
2014 - Portuguese football legend Eusebio dies at the age of 71.
