2005: Sirleaf sworn in as first female president of Liberia
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is sworn in as war-battered Liberia’s new president, carving her name into history as Africa’s first elected female head of state. Wearing a cream-coloured outfit and traditional African headdress, Sirleaf repeated the oath of office read to her by Liberian Supreme Court Chief Justice Henry Reed Cooper during an inauguration ceremony attended by thousands of civilians and scores of foreign diplomats, dignitaries and African leaders. To thunderous applause, Sirleaf pledged to “faithfully, conscientiously and impartially discharge the duties and functions of the office of president of the Republic of Liberia to the best of my abilities, so help me God.” Sirleaf takes charge of a ruined nation struggling for peace after a quarter century of coups and war. She has pledged to unite Liberia and secure the trust of sceptical foreign donours whose aid is desperately needed to rebuild. First Lady Laura Bush and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice attended the ceremony.
Other notable events
1666
France, allied with Holland, declares war on England.
1761
British take Pondicherry after siege, marking the end of French dominion in India.
1778
France recognises US independence.
1816
Portugal’s South American colony, Brazil, becomes a kingdom.
1909
British explorer Ernest Shackleton finds magnetic south pole.
1920
Georgia declares independence.
1924
Eleftherios Venizelos becomes Prime Minister of Greece for the fourth time.
1925
Leon Trotsky is dismissed from chairmanship of Russia’s Revolutionary Council.
1942
Actress Carole Lombard, 33, dies in a plane crash near Las Vegas.
1966
Major General Aguiyi Ironsi takes over power in Nigeria.
1969
Soviet cosmonauts achieve first linkup of two manned spaceships while in orbit.
1971
Swiss ambassador to Brazil, Giovanni Enrico Bucher, is freed in Rio de Janeiro after being held by kidnappers for 40 days.
1973
US and South Vietnam declare ceasefire in Vietnam War in hopes of full peace pact.
1979
Shah of Iran flees into exile.
1987
Hu Yaobang resigns as head of China’s Communist Party
1991
US led forces attack targets in Kuwait and Iraq and ‘liberation of Kuwait has begun’.
1992
El Salvador government signs a pact with rebels ending 12 years of civil war.
1992
A special high court in Greece acquits former Socialist Premier Andreas Papandreou of involvement in a $210-million bank embezzlement scheme
1995
Five-hundred motorists are stranded in the Jawahar tunnel in northern India by a snowslide that killed at least 183 people.
1996
Sierra Leone’s military ruler Valentine Strasser is ousted in a coup
2000
Ricardo Lagos is elected Chile’s first socialist president.
2001
Laurent Kabila, president of Congo, is killed in a shooting at his home.
2006
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is sworn in as Liberia’s new President. She becomes Africa’s first female elected head of state.
2008
The first batch of female Emirati pilots graduate from Khalifa Air College in Al Ain.
2009
Zimbabwe unveils its 100 trillion dollar note.
2012
At least 19 people are killed and 16 others feared trapped in the rubble of a run-down apartment block that collapsed in Beirut.
2013
A helicopter crashes into a crane on top of one of Europe’s tallest residential blocks in Central London, killing two people.
2014
Dubai Aluminium (Dubal) becomes a private joint stock company.
