June 30
1652 England declares war on the Dutch.
1859 Frenchman Charles Blondin makes the first crossing of the Niagara Falls on a tightrope.
1876 Serbia declares war on Turkey.
1894 Korea declares independence from China.
1930 Britain recognises independence of Iraq.
1936 Margaret Mitchell’s epic Gone with the Wind is published.
1937 The world’s first emergency telephone number, 999, is introduced in London.
1960 Belgian Congo becomes the independent Republic of the Congo.
1965 India and Pakistan sign a ceasefire.
1974 The mother of American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., is killed in Atlanta.
1975 Muhammad Ali defeats Joe Bugner in Malaysia.
1985 The 39 American hostages seized in the hijacking of a TWA jet are released after 17 days in captivity.
1989 Sudanese Premier Sadiq Al Mahdi held in house arrest after Omar Hassan Al Bashir takes power in a bloodless coup.
1990 Soviet government resumes oil shipments to Lithuania one day after that republic’s parliament agrees to suspend declaration of independence.
1994 US Figure Skating Association strips Tonya Harding of national championship and bans her for life for her involvement in the attack on rival Nancy Kerrigan.
1996 Radovan Karadzic, leader of the Bosnian Serbs and a suspected war criminal, steps aside, handing over to a nationalist deputy.
1997 China regains control of Hong Kong.
1998 An American F-16 fires on an Iraqi missile site that had threatened British warplanes.
2005 The 1.5km Dubai Airport tunnel is inaugurated.
2006 Kuwait’s Islamist-led opposition gains a parliamentary majority in historic elections.
2007 Two men ram a blazing car into the main terminal of Glasgow Airport.
2008 Nathalie Coughlin set a new world record of 59.03 seconds for women’s 100-metre backstroke.
2009 A Yemenia Airways carrying 154 passengers crash lands at the Indian Ocean, killing 153 people.
2010 Benigno Simeon “Noynoy” Aquino is sworn in as the 15th President of the Philippines.
2012 Mohammad Mursi is sworn in as Egyptian President in Cairo
2013 US President Barack Obama visits Nelson Mandela in his hometown.
2014 India launches five foreign satellites
HIGHLIGHT
1995
CNN signs landmark India television deal
India’s state-run television channel Doordarshan, in a landmark step in opening up the country to foreign television networks, signed an agreement to allow CNN to broadcast to the subcontinent. Under the politically sensitive deal, US-based Turner International will pay $1.5 million (Dh5.51 million) a year for the lease of a 24-hour channel on the Indian government-owned Insat 2B satellite to beam CNN International Inc (CNNI). Turner International and CNNI are subsidiaries of Turner Broadcasting Systems Inc. “It is a turning point for television in India ...,” R. Basu, Doordarshan’s director general, said after signing the agreement in New Delhi. Basu said the agreement would lead to Doordarshan offering channels to other television broadcasters.
