Castro visits Iran
2001 - Cuban President Fidel Castro (left) urged Iran to help defeat the US “as you toppled the Shah” in 1979. “You overthrew the Shah 22 years ago, but there is another Shah one thousand times stronger and better armed,” he said, referring to the US-backed late Iranian monarch, during a visit to the Islamic republic. “This (new) Shah is imperialism,” Castro said.
May 9
1877 - Romania proclaims its independence from Turkey.
1901 - Australia opens its first parliament in Melbourne.
1926 - Richard E. Byrd and Floyd Bennett become first men to fly over the North Pole.
1927 - Canberra replaces Melbourne as the capital of Australia.
1936 - Italy annexes Ethiopia.
1946 - Italy’s King Victor Emmanuel III abdicates and Umberto II proclaims himself king.
1955 - West Germany is admitted into Nato.
1960 - The United States Food and Drug Administration approves use of the birth control pill.
1967 - India’s Vice-President Zakir Hussain is named President, becoming the first Muslim to hold that office in the country.
1978 - The bullet-riddled body of Italy’s former prime minister Aldo Moro is found in a parked car in central Rome.
1979 - United States and Soviet Union sign the Salt 2 treaty, limiting nuclear weapons.
1980 - Liberian freighter rams the Sunshine Skyway Bridge over Tampa Bay in Florida, killing 35 motorists and causing a section of the bridge to collapse.
1987 - A Polish airliner crashes in a Warsaw suburb killing 183 passengers and crew.
1991 - Between 100,000 and 400,000 protesters march in Seoul demanding the resignation of South Korean President Roh Tae-woo.
1994 - South Africa’s newly elected parliament chooses Nelson Mandela as first black president of the country.
1995 - The city of Kinshasa, Zaire, is placed under quarantine after an outbreak of Ebola virus.
2000 - Ras Al Khaimah issues a law to create a free trade zone.
2003 - A gunman fires as he roams the halls of a university business school in Ohio, killing one person.
2004 - A bomb kills provincial president Akhmad Kadyrov in the Chechen capital.
2007 - India test-fires a medium-range nuclear-capable missile meant for military use.
2009 - Jacob Zuma is sworn in as South African President.
2010 - Chelsea wins the English Premier League football championship.
2011 - The $2.8 billion (Dh10.29 billion) greenfield plant at Fujairah F2 power and desalination plant is inaugurated.
2013 - A fire at a garments factory in Dhaka kills its managing director and seven others.
2014 - A train crashes into a Jeep at an unmanned railroad crossing at Narkatiya in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, killing 13 members of a wedding party.
