Malaysia boat tragedy
1993 - At least 37 Indonesian illegal immigrants drowned and another 35 are feared dead after they were forced to swim ashore from a ferry smuggling them to Morib, Malaysia, rescue workers said. The captain of the boat carrying about 120 people across the Malacca Strait to Malaysia forced the passengers off the vessel after hitting a sandbar. Forty-nine of them survived a frantic 300-metre pre-dawn swim to reach Morib, about 80km south of Kuala Lumpur on Malaysia’s west coast. The dead, including 19 women and three young children, were given a mass burial in a Muslim cemetery overlooking the quiet beach where their bodies were washed ashore.
July 20
1810 - Colombia declares its independence from Spain.
1913 - Turkey recaptures Adrianople from Bulgaria.
1951 - Jordan’s King Abdullah is assassinated in Jerusalem by a Palestinian gunman.
1969 - US astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin take first walk on the moon.
1976 - US spacecraft Viking I lands on Mars after an 11-month flight and begins sending back clear pictures of the planet.
1989 - Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is placed under house arrest.
1992 - Vaclav Havel steps down as Czechoslovakia’s president.
1993 - A dhow wharfage is inaugurated in Dubai.
1994 - South Africa rejoins Commonwealth.
1997 - An IRA truce after 28 years of guerrilla war in Northern Ireland takes effect.
2002 - A fire rips through a packed disco in the Peruvian capital, killing at least 25 people.
2015 - The UN Security Council unanimously endorses the landmark nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers.
