1998 - Exide Al Dobowi, the UAE’s first car battery plant built at a cost of almost Dh18.5 million and spread over 10,000 square metres, was inaugurated at Dubai’s Jebel Ali Free Zone. Present at the opening ceremony were Abdul Rahman Al Mutaiwee, director general of the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and Arthur Hawkins, chairman and chief executive of the internationally renowned Exide Corp of the United States. Exide Al Dobowi, a 51:49 per cent partnership between Exide Corp and local distributor Dubai-based Al Dobowi, is said to be the second-largest in the Middle East after the Omani Reem Batteries producing 50,000 batteries per month. Jebel Ali’s Exide Al Dobowi facility is expected to produce 250,000 batteries in the first year.
Other important events
1904 - The Russo-Japanese War begins.
1910 - The Boy Scouts of America is incorporated.
1924 - The first US execution by gas takes place at the Nevada State Prison.
1950 - The first-ever payment by credit card, the founders of Diners Club paid their restaurant bill at Major’s Cabin Grill in New York City.
1962 - US military council is established in South Vietnam.
1963 - Iraqi Prime Minister Abdul Kareem Qasim is assassinated in Baghdad.
1964 - Holland’s Princess Irene renounces her rights to the throne to marry Roman Catholic Spanish prince Carlos Hugo.
1971 - The Nasdaq Stock Market opens for the first time.
1984 - UAE Ambassador to France, Khalifa Ahmad Abdul Aziz Al Mubarak, is shot dead in Paris.
1985 - South Korean opposition leader Kim Dea-jung is put under house arrest after returning from the US.
1986 - A passenger train and a freight train collide in Alberta, Canada, killing at least 29 people.
1993 - 133 people are killed as an Iranian chartered plane collides with a military jet in mid-air.
1994 - Kapil Dev breaks Sir Richard Hadlee’s record and becomes Test cricket’s highest wicket-taker.
1995 - A powerful earthquake rocks Colombia, killing at least 38 people and injuring more than 230 others.
1996 - A cargo plane crashes into the market in Kinshasa, Zaire, killing at least 350 people.
2002 - The 19th Winter Olympic Games open in Salt Lake, Utah.
2005 - Israel and the Palestinian National Authority sign a truce at the Sharm Al Shaikh Summit, ending the four-year Second Intifada.
2006 - Nepal goes to polls after seven years.
2007 - Rival Palestinian leaders sign ‘Makkah Declaration’ to form a national unity government
2013 - Fares Al Sultan and Deirdre Casey set records at the Tri Yas triathlon at the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi.
2014 - A fire kills at least 15 people in a pilgrim hotel in Madinah, Saudi Arabia.
2016 - Danny Willett wins Omega Dubai Desert Classic 2016.
