Junius Jayewardene, Sri Lanka’s first executive head of state and the driving force behind its market reforms, died in a Colombo hospital aged 90. President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s government, which had strongly criticised Jayewardene’s 12-year rule, has granted him a funeral with full state honours. A family member told reporters at the private Nawaloka Hospital, where Jayewardene died of cancer, that the government would give him a state funeral and also declare a day of national mourning. Jayewardene, who led his United National Party to a landslide win in parliamentary polls in 1977, introduced a controversial executive presidential system of government the following year. He retired from politics in 1989 after completing the maximum two terms allowed by the constitution which he adopted. Jayewardene, who one boasted “the only thing I cannot do is change a man into a woman,” had a deep dislike of dissent. He did not even trust his own legislators and had them sign undated letters of resignation so they would always toe the line..
Other important events:
1755 Earthquake rocks Lisbon, Portugal, killing 60,000 people.
1914 Russia declares war on the Ottoman Empire during the World War I.
1950 Basketball player Chuck Cooper becomes the first African American to play in the NBA.
1952 US explode the first hydrogen bomb at Eniwetok in the Marshall Islands.
1954 The Algerian War of Independence begin.
1955 United Airlines Flight 629 explodes over Longmont, Colorado, killing all 39 passengers and 5 crew.
1956 Formation of Indian state of Andhra Pradesh with its capital as Hyderabad, formerly known as Nizam state.
1961 Eighty-five people are killed in nationalist demonstrations in Algiers.
1966 The New Orleans Saints American football team is founded in Louisiana.
1968 US military halts all air, naval and artillery bombardment of Vietnam.
1971 A dance hall fire in Saint Laurent-du-Point, France, claims 142 lives.
1981 Caribbean islands of Antigua and Barbuda form an independent state.
1987 Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping resigns from a key Communist Party post.
1989 East Germany reopens its border with Czechoslovakia, tens of thousands of people fled to the west.
1990 Britain’s deputy Prime Minister Sir Geoffrey Howe resigns over the government’s policy towards Europe.
1992 Russia sends more troops to the Caucasus region after fighting flares between Ingush and Ossetian forces.
1993 The Maastricht Treaty takes effect, formally establishing the European Union.
1996 The first DVD players (manufactured by Toshiba and Matsushita/Panasonic) goes on sale in Japan.
1997 Indonesia closes 16 banks left insolvent by Asia’s financial problems.
1998 The European Court of Human Rights is founded in Strasbourg, France.
2000 Serbia joins the United Nations.
2001 Nato member Turkey becomes the first Muslim nation to commit troops to the war against Afghanistan.
2005 Dubai government issues a law to set up the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA).
2007 Tropical Storm Noel drenches the central Caribbean, killing at least 107.
2009 Sebastian Vettel wins the inaugural Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
2011 China launches an unmanned craft Shenzhou VIII into space.
2012 A fuel tanker collide into a bridge and kills 22 people and injured more than a hundred in Saudi Arabia.
2015 the construction work starts of on a British naval forces facility in Bahrain.
