2002 - The Roads and Bridges Section of Al Ain Municipality and Town Planning Department has demolished the Clock Tower, one of the city’s oldest landmarks, as part of the city’s development. The clock tower was one of several similar landmarks built in the 1970s when the UAE embarked upon its programme of modern development. According to an official source at the municipality, the section has been spending millions on the construction and beautification of bridges, flyovers and underpasses, roads, and roundabouts. The demolition is part of a plan under which the clock tower roundabout will be reconstructed to match the modern look of the city. The section has also been working on new car parks and rainwater drainage channels in all residential areas.
Other important events
1807 - France invades Portugal.
1862 - US President Abraham Lincoln delivers one of the most famous speeches in American history.
1867 - Tokugawa Yoshinobu, Japan’s last Shogun, resigns and returns his power to the Emperor.
1917 - Indira Gandhi, who later became prime minister of India, is born.
1924 - Sir Lee Stack, British Governor of Sudan, slain in Egypt.
1942 - Soviet troops counterattack at Stalingrad and surround German troops in Second World War.
1957 - Antonin Novotny is appointed President of Czechoslovakia.
1969 - Apollo 12 astronauts Charles Conrad and Alan Bean make man’s second landing on the moon.
1973 - Cambodian presidential palace in Phnom Penh is bombed, killing three people.
1977 - Egyptian President Anwar Sadat arrives in Israel on his first peace mission.
1979 - Militants seize Islam’s holiest shrine in Makkah, Saudi Arabia, and are later driven out.
1980 - A plane carrying 120 Cuban refugees arrives in Miami as an airlift of refugees from Havana begins.
1985 - US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev meet for the first time at a summit in Geneva.
1990 - Nepal adopts a new Constitution, creating a democratic government.
1995 - A suicide bomber rams his explosive-packed truck into the Egyptian Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, killing 15 people.
2002 - A tanker carrying 70,000 tonnes of fuel oil splits and sinks off northwest Spain.
2006 - US trade pact opens door for Russia to join World Trade Organisation.
2007 - Ex-Khmer Rouge president Khiieu Samphan is arrested and faces genocide charges in Cambodia.
2009 - Salem Sa’ad, a football player with UAE club Al Nasr, dies of a heart attack during practice. He was 31.
2010 - US President Barack Obama wins Nato summit agreement to build a missile shield over Europe.
2011 - Muammar Gaddafi’s son Saif Al Islam is captured by revolutionaries in Libya.
