2002 - The 14th Asian Games concluded with a befitting closing ceremony at the Busan main stadium. Witnessing the spectacle, with a capacity crowd of 53,000, were the Korean prime minister, the mayor of Busan, Busan Asian Games Organising Committee chairman, deputy president of the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) and other Korean officials and OCA members. Shaikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani, Chairman of the Qatari Olympic Committee and President of the 2006 Doha Asian Games Organising Committee, received the flag of the Games. Qatar will hold the 15th Asian Games in Doha. He also received the flag and the torch of the first Asian Games held in New Delhi half a century ago.
Other important events
1912 - Theodore Roosevelt, campaigning for the US presidency, is shot in the chest in Milwaukee.
1922 - The first automated telephone exchange begins operating in New York City.
1933 - Nazi Germany withdraws from the League of Nation.
1939 - A German submarine sinks the British battleship Royal Oak in Scapa Flow, with loss of 833 lives.
1944 - British and Greek troops liberate Athens from Germany.
1947 - US Air Force Captain Chuck Yeager becomes the first person to fly faster than sound as he tests a supersonic flight over California.
1964 - Leonid Brezhnev becomes Leader of the Soviet Union, replacing Nikita Khrushchev.
1966 - The Montreal Metro system in Quebec, Canada, begins operating.
1968 - The first live telecast from a manned US spacecraft is transmitted from Apollo 7.
1973 - Sanya Thammasak is named premier of Thailand after violent clashes between troops and students.
1989 - Jordan officially launches its first national election campaign in 22 years.
1993 - Gunmen assassinate Justice Minister Guy Malary in Haiti.
1994 - Israeli leaders Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres share the Nobel Peace Prize with PLO leader Yasser Arafat.
1998 - Amartya Sen, an Indian expert on welfare, wins Nobel Prize in Economics.
2006 - Sudan signs peace deal with eastern rebels in the Eritrean capital of Asmara.
2007 - At least 20 people are killed in a stampede at the hill-top Mahakali temple in Pavagadh, Gujarat.
2008 - Terminal 3 at Dubai International Airport is officially opened.
2009 - The 27km-long Shaikh Khalifa Bridge, connecting Abu Dhabi Island and Shahama District in Abu Dhabi, is opened to public.
2012 - Austrian Felix Baumgartner makes history when he jumps in a supersonic speed 39 kilometres from the ground.
2013 - Former UAE and Al Ain football coach Bruno Metsu dies of cancer.
2016 - Egyptrian writer and poet Farouq Shousha dies at the age of 80.
