1998 Two car bombs tore into the United States embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing about 80 people. In Nairobi, scene of the worst carnage, passengers in a bus outside the US embassy were incinerated in their seats. One building behind the embassy collapsed, crushing scores to death. The two powerful bombs exploded within minutes of each other in Nairobi and then Dar es Salaam.
In Dar es Salaam, a US embassy official said six people were killed, including three Tanzanian guards and two locally hired embassy staff, and 58 people were injured. US President Bill Clinton has vowed to do everything in his power to bring the perpetrators to justice. The US Defence Department announced it was sending a special team of FBI agents to Africa and the US Air Force said it was sending at least two military aircraft with medical evacuation staff.
Other important events
1926 The first British Grand Prix motor race is held at Brooklands in Surrey.
1941 Indian poet, writer and Nobel prize winner Rabindranath Tagore dies at the age of 80.
1944 The world’s first program-controlled calculator is presented to Harvard University in Boston.
1945 Soviet Union declares war on Japan seven days before Japanese surrender in the Second World War.
1957 An estimated 1,000 people are killed in Cali, Colombia, when a military truck convoy carrying dynamite and gasoline blows up.
1960 The Ivory Coast becomes independent of France.
1986 Edward Lee Howard, a fugitive former CIA agent suspected of selling information, is granted political asylum in the Soviet Union.
1987 Lebanese former President Camille Chamoun dies of heart attack.
1990 US send troops and warplanes to Saudi Arabia to protect against Iraq invasion.
2002 Alvaro Uribe is sworn in as president of Colombia.
2011 Capt Salem Al Mazroui is murdered in his home in Houston, Texas after two robbers forced their way into their house.
2013 A massive early morning fire destroys the arrival halls of Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi.
2015 The American gunman James Holmes who stormed a Batman movie premiere and killed 12 cinemagoers sentenced for life.
