2002 At least 80 people were reported to have died and over 170 injured in one of India’s worst rail accidents when a bogey of a luxury superfast train of Kolkata-New Delhi plunged into a river, and left two others hanging precariously from a bridge. The Rajdhani Express, a luxury air-conditioned train, was a mass of mangled, twisted metal after it derailed on a bridge in the eastern state of Bihar, near Rafiganj. 67 bodies had been recovered from the wreckage and 13 other injured died in hospitals in three nearby towns. Indian Railway minister, Nitish Kumar said that “sabotage” could be the cause of the accident as fishplates had been removed close to the scene of the accident. But the Bihar state government and other railway officials in Kolkata ruled out “sabotage” on such a high density railway traffic route. The train was carrying 535 passengers and 70 railway staff when it derailed. It was running at a speed of about 130kph.
Other important events
1844 France’s war in Morocco ends with the Treaty of Tangier.
1885 Britain makes compromise settlement with Russia over Afghanistan frontier.
1898 Empress Elizabeth of Austria-Hungary is assassinated by an Italian anarchist in Geneva.
1921 The world first controlled-access highway, part of Germany’s autobahn systems, opens near Berlin.
1923 Ireland is admitted into the League of Nations.
1939 Canada declares war on Germany during Second World War.
1973 Two IRA bombs explodes at King’s Cross Station and Euston Station in
London.
1974 Guinea-Bissau gains independence from Portugal.
1977 Convicted murderer Hamida Djandoubi, a Tunisian immigrant, is the last person to be executed by guillotine in France.
1979 Ayatollah Mahmoud Taleghani, the spiritual chief of Tehran dies at the age of 68.
1985 Youths hurled stones and bottles at a cabinet minister as fresh riots erupted in Birmingham, Britain’s second city.
1989 Algerian Prime Minister Kasdi Merbah steps down under protest.
1990 Gulf War foes Iran and Iraq agree to resume diplomatic relations and reopen their embassies.
1991 In Moscow, Mikhail Gorbachev convenes first human rights conference to be held in Soviet Union.
1993 Five Somali employees of Cable News Network are killed and four wounded in clan fighting.
1999 Three bombs explode in apartment buildings in Moscow and Volgodonsk, in southern Russia, killing at least 229 people.
2000 Ecuador becomes the first Latin American country to adopt the US dollar officially.
2001 Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko sweeps the election to another five-year term.
2002 Switzerland joins the United Nations.
2007 Pakistan deports former prime minister Nawaz Sharif to Saudi Arabia after his dramatic return from exile.
2008 Saleh Aridi, a senior member of the Lebanese Democratoc Party, is assassinated in Lebanon.
2009 Sa’ad Hariri steps down as Lebanon’s prime minister-designate, following the opposition’s rejection of his cabinet proposal
2011 A ferry capsizes off the popular tourist archipelago of Zanzibar in Tanzania, at least 163 people died.
2012 A bus skid off the road and fall into a 1,000-foot-deep gorge in Kangra district, Himachal Pradesh, killing 34 people.
2013 German Thomas Bach is elected as the ninth IOC President.
2016 At least 15 dead, 70 injured in Bangladesh factory fire.
