London night club siege ends
1990 - A 10-hour siege at a central London nightclub ended peacefully when police arrested a gunman holding hostages and reportedly demanding an aircraft to take him to Beirut. The gunman, wrapped in a red blanket, which covered his head, emerged first from Tokyo Joe’s, a popular club in Clarges Street off Piccadilly, and was bundled into a police vehicle. Police had no immediate details on how the siege ended. At one stage, he had ordered the police to supply a coach to take him and 60 hostages to Heathrow with a guaranteed flight for all of them to Beirut. Police carried out lengthy negotiations with the man, reported to be armed with a shotgun, a pistol, a sword-like knife and a bomb-like device strapped around his waist.
July 29
1858 - The United States and Japan sign their first commercial treaty.
1890 - Dutch Artist Vincent van Gogh dies of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in Auvers, France, at the age of 37.
1937 - Eighteen-year-old Crown Prince Farouk is crowned king of Egypt.
1948 - King George VI opens 14th modern Olympic Games in London.
1958 - The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) is founded in US.
1965 - The Beatles’ film Help! is released in the United Kingdom.
1967 - Fire sweeps the USS Forrestal in the Gulf of Tonkin, killing 134 sailors.
1979 - A Singapore Airline’s flight carrying Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew aborts its take off at Dubai airport when two tyres burst and the plane skidded off the runway.
1980 - Iran’s Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi is laid to rest in Cairo.
1981 - Prince Charles marries Lady Diana Spencer in London.
1987 - Sri Lankan President Junius Jayewardene and Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi sign a controversial peace pact in Colombo.
1989 - Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani wins presidential elections in Iran.
1999 - The first express rail service between Amman and Damascus begins with six new trains.
2002 - Egypt’s rights activist Sa’ad Ebrahim is sentenced to seven years in jail.
2007 - Iraq wins the 2007 football Asian Cup in Jakarta.
2008 - Emirates’ A380 makes a historic landing at Dubai International Airport.
2009 - Microsoft and Yahoo unveil a 10-year deal which gives Microsoft access to Yahoo users.
