2003 - Eurostar, the company running train services between London, Paris and Brussels through the English Channel tunnel, said it was hoping for a “second birth” after a high-speed rail line in Britain was opened. Guillaume Pepy, the president of the Eurostar Group, told the French financial newspaper La Tribune that the 74-km stretch of new track would cut the time for the London-Paris service by 20 minutes and bring in another 700,000 passengers a year.
Other important events
1941 - Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, the shah of Iran, replaces his father on the throne.
1955 - Argentine President Juan Peron is ousted.
1978 - More than 11,000 people are dead after an earthquake measuring 7.7 on the Richter scale hits the southeast region of Iran.
1979 - Afghanistan President Noor Mohammad Taraki is overthrown in a coup.
1986 - A fire at a gold mine in Kinross, South Africa kills 177 people.
1990 - Iraq opens Kuwait’s borders and thousands of Kuwaitis attempt to flee their country.
2009 - Sa’ad Hariri is reappointed as Lebanon’s Prime Minister to form a new government.
2017 - Dubai launches world’s largest concentrated solar power project at a cost of Dh14.2 billion.
