2002 - John Lennon’s widow Yoko Ono unveiled a statue of the murdered Beatle as Liverpool’s airport was renamed in his honour. The seven-foot bronze statue, by sculptor Tom Murphy, shows a striding Lennon wearing his trademark round glasses, a T-shirt and casual suit. Accompanied by Prime Minister Tony Blair’s wife Cherie, who helped her unveil the work, Yoko said: “It’s brilliant. I think it captures John and shows him moving, alive, rather than standing still like some statues. The world needs communication and this Liverpool John Lennon Airport will promote the growth of international communication for Liverpool and for the world. Communication and exchanging will lead to understanding and understanding will create love and peace. And the world needs peace.”
Other important events
1848 - Hungarian intellectuals stage bloodless revolution against Austro-Hungarian Empire.
1894 - France and Germany agree on boundaries between the French Congo and Cameroons.
1903 - British conquest of northern Nigeria is complete.
1917 - Czar Nicholas II of Russia abdicates after a humiliating defeat at German hands.
1938 - Germany seizes Czechoslovakia.
1976 - An IRA bomb explodes on a London Underground train at West Ham Station, no one is injured.
1986 - A six-storey hotel collapses in Singapore, trapping more than 150 people under the rubble.
1989 - The town of Taba, on the Sinai Peninsula, is returned to Egypt after being occupied by Israel since the Six-Day War of 1967.
1990 - Mikhail Gorbachev is elected executive president of Soviet Union.
1991 - Serbian President Borisav Jovic resigns after failing to declare a nationwide state of emergency.
1992 - An earthquake in eastern Turkey kills an estimated 800 people.
1999 - The first phase of a Dh300 million project to supply natural gas to homes in Sharjah is officially inaugurated.
2001 - Armed Chechens hijack a Russian plane carrying 174 people after it takes off from Turkey and force it to land in Madinah, Saudi Arabia.
2005 - Twenty-six people are killed when police storm a maximum security prison in Manila.
2006 - Libya signs a nuclear research agreement with France.
2007 - Hamas and Fatah forge a unity Palestinian government.
2013 - China parliament names Li Keqiang as new prime minister.
2016 - Myanmar’s lawmakers elect Htin Kyaw to become the country’s first civilian president in decades.
