1997 - Kevin Keegan shocked Newcastle United and the world of football by quitting as manager of the club he had revitalised, saying he no longer wanted to be a manager at this stage in his life. Keegan, 45, who transformed English Premier League side Newcastle in five years from a moribund sleeping giant into one of the most exciting teams in Britain, had told the Newcastle board he wanted to quit at the end of the season, but both parties agreed it would be better if he left immediately. Keegan told Newcastle club fans’ telephone service: “It was my decision and my decision alone. I offered my resignation at the end of last season, but was persuaded by the board to stay. I feel I have taken the club as far as I can and that it would be in the best interests of all concerned if I resigned.”
Other important events
1654 - Ukraine joins Russia.
1679 - French explorer La Salle reaches Niagara Falls.
1790 - US President George Washington delivers first State of the Union address.
1912 - African National Congress found in Bloemfontein.
1926 - Abdul Aziz Bin Saud becomes King of Hejaz and renames it Saudi Arabia.
1930 - Belgian Princess Marie Jose marries Italian crown prince Umberto.
1935 - American physicist Arthur C. Hardy is granted a patent for the first Spectrophotometer.
1947 - General George Marshall is nominated US Secretary of State.
1952 - Jordan adopts constitution.
1959 - Charles de Gaulle assumes the presidency in France, inaugurating the Fifth Republic.
1973 - Soviet space mission Luna 21 is launched.
1987 - Gunners shell Beirut International Airport, setting ablaze an empty Lebanese passenger plane and killing 10 people and wounding 46.
1989 - British Midland Flight 092, a Boeing 737-400, crashes in England, killing 46 people.
1991 - A commuter train runs into buffers at Cannon Street Station in London, killing two people.
1992 - US President George H. W. Bush vomits and collapses at a state dinner at the Japanese Prime Minister’s residence in Tokyo.
1996 - A cargo plane crashes into a crowded market in the centre of the Zaire capital Kinshasa, killing over 250 people.
1997 - Poisonous gas leaks from a tanker truck in Lahore, Pakistan, killing 30 people.
1998 - Ramzi Yousuf is sentenced to life in prison plus 240 years for masterminding the World Trade Centre Bombing in New York.
2002 - US President George W. Bush signs the No Child Left Behind Act.
2006 - A US Army Black Hawk helicopter crashes, killing all 12 Americans believed to be aboard.
2009 - Leonidas Vargas, a convicted Colombian drug baron, is shot dead in a Madrid hospital.
2015 - A super-antibiotic capable teixobactin, which will wipe out everything from Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus to tuberculosis, is found.
