Senate Chairman Wasim Sajjad and a former civil servant Moin Qureshi took over as acting president and caretaker prime minister of Pakistan after President Ishaq Khan and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif quit office as part of a package deal to end a three-month-old political crisis. Nawaz announced in a nationwide broadcast that he has ordered fresh elections and a couple of hours later, Ishaq issued a proclamation dissolving the national assembly and the four provincial assemblies. The deal was hammered out under supervision of the Army Chief General Abdul Waheed after days of protracted negotiations. Nawaz said by quitting the post he was setting a new precedent since every other head of the government before him had been forced out of office.
Major events happened on July 18
1877 American inventor Thomas Edison invents the carbon telephone transmitter.
1923 British Matrimonial Causes Act gives women equality in divorce suits.
1934 British king George V opens the Mersey Tunnel, the longest underwater tunnel at the time.
1966 Nasa launches its Gemini 10 manned spacecraft.
1968 Intel, the American microprocessor company, is founded
1972 Cairo orders Soviet Union to withdraw military advisers stationed in Egypt.
1977 Vietnam becomes member of United Nations.
1980 India launches its first satellite, Rohini.
1998 South African President Nelson Mandela celebrates his 80th birthday by marrying Graca Machel.
2002 A.P.J. Abdul Kalam is elected as Indian president.
2003 Dubai Government issues a decree setting up the Dubai Media Foundation.
2005 The first successful robot camel jockey race in the world is introduced in the UAE.
2010 An express train ploughs through a stationary train at a station in West Bengal, India, killing 61 people.
2013 Detroit filed the largest municipal bankruptcy in United States’ history.
2015 A car bombing in a crowded market in the eastern Iraqi province of Diyala has killed at least 120 people.
2017 US hits Iran with new sanctions over ballistic missile programme and terror support.
