1992 - All 141 passengers and crew in a Chinese Boeing 737 were killed when it slammed into a mountain in southwest China in the worst recorded crash in the country’s civil aviation history. The China Southern Airlines plane carrying 133 passengers and eight crew crashed on approach to landing in the scenic tourist city of Guilin. Witnesses saw the jet belch smoke before it hit a mountain and explode into pieces. Most of the passengers and all the crew are believed to be mainland Chinese. It was not immediately known what caused the crash, but a government tourist official, He Menghua, said from Guilin that according to airport officials the control tower had warned the plane that it was descending too fast. The plane crashed about 20-30 km south of Guilin.
Other important events
1874 - Barbed wire is patented by American Joseph F. Glidden.
1935 - King George II of Greece returns to his homeland after 12 years in exile in London.
1942 - Germans suffer heavy losses in Battle of Stalingrad in Soviet Union in Second World War.
1948 - Ireland votes for independence from UK.
1955 - The Fokker F-27 Friendship turboprop airliner makes its first flight.
1956 - The UN General Assembly presses Britain, France and Israel for withdrawal of their troops from Egypt.
1961 - UN Security Council calls on UN members to make Africa a nuclear weapons-free zone.
1963 - Lee Harvey Oswald, accused of assassinating US president John F. Kennedy, is shot dead.
1975 - Earthquake in eastern Turkey kills at least 574 people.
1979 - The UAE’s first electric cable factory is opened in Jebel Ali, Dubai.
1985 - Egyptian commandos storm hijacked Egyptian airliner at Malta.
1987 - US and the Soviet Union agree to scrap short and medium-range missiles in the first superpower treaty.
1987 - China names Li Peng as acting premier.
1988 - Bangladesh is hit by the worst cyclone in its history, killing more than 5,000 people.
1989 - Elias Hrawi is elected President of Lebanon, following the assassination of Rene Mouawad.
1991 - Rock star Freddie Mercury dies of Aids in London.
2001 - Malaysian police arrest Nur Misuari, leader of the Moro National Liberation Front.
2006 - China signs a five-year free trade pact with Pakistan.
2007 - Labour leader Kevin Rudd is elected Australia’s prime minister.
2010 - Rolls Royce inks $1.2 billion (Dh4.41 billion) Emirates airline deal.
2012 - 112 factory workers die in Bangladesh when a nine storey garment factory building catches fire.
2013 - Iran strikes a historic agreement with the US and five other world powers, accepting strict constraints on its nuclear programme.
2014 - US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel announces his resignation.
