The Serbian forces besieging Sarajevo bombarded the city for a third successive night in spite of an agreement to reopen Sarajevo airport to humanitarian aid. The relentless shelling, which set office buildings and blocks of flats on fire, looked like a deliberate attempt to destroy the city before the agreement on reopening the airport for food and medical supplies is realised. Tongues of flames lapped out of the blackened window frames of the prominent UNIS company tower block, from the fourth to the 24th floor. Many people are thought to have been killed in the latest Serbian assault which threatens to reduce the historic Bosnian capital to rubble. Water and electricity supplies were cut off by the shelling. Three successive nights of fierce shelling have wrecked dozens of historic monuments, including Orthodox and Catholic cathedrals and several mosques dating back to the 16th century.
Other important events
1862 Britain and United States sign a treaty to suppress the slave trade.
1917 Lions Clubs International is founded
1921 The first Parliament of Northern Ireland opens.
1935 Stanley Baldwin becomes British Prime Minister for the third time.
1938 Boeing 314 Clipper flying boat first flown.
1940 The last British troops leave Narvik, Norway.
1942 The battle of Midway in Pacific ends in a major US victory over the Japanese in the Second World War.
1950 Egypt, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Yemen sign a Collective Security Pact in Alexandria, Egypt.
1970 Voters in Switzerland reject a proposal to force almost one-third of a million aliens to leave that country.
1975 The inaugural Cricket World Cup begins in England.
1980 Lebanese Prime Minister Salim Hoss resigns.
1981 Israeli aircraft attack Osiris nuclear power plant in Iraq.
1988 Bangladesh’s parliament passes a constitutional amendment, making Islam as the national religion.
1992 Ebulfaz Elcibey wins Azerbaijan’s first multiparty presidential election.
1993 Bosnian Croats surrender to Serbs to escape “slaughter” by their former allies.
1995 Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui becomes the island’s first president to set foot in US.
1997 Foreigners flee heavy fighting between rival militias in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo.
1998 Lebanon holds its first municipal elections in 35 years.
1999 Indonesians vote in democratic elections for the first time since 1955.
2001 Former Argentine president Carlos Menem is placed under house arrest as part of an alleged arms trafficking probe.
2003 An explosives-packed taxi rams a bus filled with German peacekeepers, killing four peacekeepers in Kabul.
2007 Cyclone Gonu batters Oman’s coast, flooding highways and tearing down trees and power lines.
2008 Unesco chooses Beirut as the World Book Capital.
2011 At least 22 people, including five women, are burnt to death in Tamil Nadu, India, when their bus falls into a ditch.
2012 Saddam Hussain’s presidential secretary and chief bodyguard Abid Hamid Mahmoud is executed in Iraq.
2014 The UAE introduces a law implementing mandatory military service for Emirati men aged between 18 and 30.
2015 Stan Wawrinka becomes the oldest winner of the French Open in 25 years after beating Novak Djokovic in the final.
