2003 - Seven people were killed, most of them children, and 20 others were hurt when a bomb ripped through a marketplace in Koronadal City, South Cotabato, Philippines. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the blast, which occurred in a region where separatist guerrillas operate. Local officials said the number of wounded could be even higher as many of the injured were rushed to hospitals before any head count could be made. Many of the victims were children and teenagers who were playing in a video shop when the explosion occurred. Many of the injured were rushed to nearby hospitals. Witnesses said three unidentified people were seen leaving the site of the bombing. Mayor Fernando Miguel of Koronadal City said the local government unit would do everything to help the injured.
Other important events
1866 - Edson Clark from Massachusetts is granted the first US patent for an indelible pencil.
1913 - Romania declares war on Bulgaria.
1962 - Telstar satellite is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, bringing live television from the US to Europe for the first time.
1973 - Bahamas gains independence after three centuries of British rule.
1978 - President Moktar Ould Daddah flees Mauritania after a bloodless military coup.
1985 - Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior is bombed by French saboteurs in Auckland.
1989 - Rocket barrage kills 20 people in Kabul, Afghanistan.
1990 - Russia’s Mikhail Gorbachev is re-elected leader of Soviet Communist Party.
1991 - Boris Yeltsin is sworn in as the first elected president of Russia.
1992 - Ousted Panamanian ruler Manuel Noriega is sentenced to 40 years in federal prison for drug trafficking.
1995 - Myanmar’s military junta frees Aung San Suu Kyi without condition after nearly six years under house arrest.
1999 - Six nations fighting in Congo’s civil war sign a long-awaited peace accord.
2006 - Nobel laureate Jose Ramos-Horta assumes office as East Timor’s new prime minister.
2007 - Radical cleric Abdul Rashid Gazi is shot dead as Pakistani troops storm the Islamabad’s Red Mosque after a week-long standoff.
2012 - Kenyan Minister George Saitori is killed along with five others in a police helicopter after it crashed near Nairobi.
2014 - UAE opens new consulate in Canada.
2015 - Egyptian-born film actor Omar Sharif dies in Cairo at the age of 83.
2017 - Gunmen kill eight people in Krabi province, Thailand.
