Faced with devastating earthquakes, raging typhoons and a decade-long property slump, Taiwan knew it needed more than the usual dose of luck to build the world’s tallest skyscraper at this time. So as soon as architects finished a draft design for the 508-metre (1,667-foot) Taipei 101-storey, which is expected to replace Malaysia’s Petronas Towers as the world’s tallest building in October, developer Harace Lin sent for a feng shui master.
“We wanted to avoid making any mistakes,” said Lin, president of Taipei Financial Center Corp, a consortium of the island’s leading banks and insurance companies that helped bankroll the $1.7 billion tower. Taiwan hopes the landmark will draw foreign companies to its capital, which has less than 10 buildings more than 100 metres tall.
Other important events:
1903 Alfred Deakin succeeds Edmund Baston as Australia premier.
1943 Soviet army crosses Dnieper River north of Kiev as Germans retreat in Second World War.
1946 Cathay Pacific Airways is founded in Hong Kong
1957 Camp Nou, the largest stadium in Europe, is opened in Barcelona.
1960 The USS Enterprise, the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, is launched.
1968 Swaziland joins the United Nations.
1973 Guinea-Bissau declares its independence from Portugal.
1990 East Germany formally withdraws from the Warsaw Pact.
1991 Lebanese kidnappers free Jack Mann in Beirut after holding him captive for 865 days.
1995 PLO and Israel sign a pact, expanding Palestinian rule in the West Bank.
2002 Two gunmen attack a Hindu temple complex in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, killing at least 30 people before being killed by commandos.
2006 Swiss voters ratify new asylum and immigration laws.
2008 Luxury hotel Atlantis on the Palm Jumeirah, Dubai, opens to the public.
2013 A major earthquake hits a remote part of western Pakistan, killing at least 45 people.
2014 An overcrowded bus plunges off a mountain road into a reservoir in a Himalayan region in India, killing 23 people.
2015 At least 769 people are killed in a stampede in Mina, Saudi Arabia.
2017 Angela Merkel wins her fourth term as German Chancellor.
