2007 - Mozambique’s former president Joaquim Chissano, who stood aside after leading his country to peace and democracy following years of civil war, won the first Mo Ebrahim Prize for African leadership. The $5 million (Dh18.35 million) prize, the world’s largest individual award, was presented by former United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan at a ceremony in London’s City Hall. Chissano, a former revolutionary who fought Portuguese colonial rule, had served as president of the southern African country from 1986 until 2005, winning praise for his pragmatic policies in a nation that was once one of the poorest in the world. He won acclaim for stepping aside after 18 years in power, when he could have stood for a further five-year term.
Other important events
1836 - Sam Houston is inaugurated as first elected President of Republic of Texas.
1873 - Emperors of Germany, Russia and Austria-Hungary form alliance.
1938 - American patent attorney and amateur inventor Chester Carlson invents the photocopier.
1947 - India and Pakistan go to war over Kashmir.
1954 - West Germany joins the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.
1962 - US President John F. Kennedy announces a blockade of Cuba.
1965 - The song Get Off of My Cloud by the Rolling Stones is released in England.
1975 - Soviet spacecraft Venera 9 soft-lands on Venus and becomes the first spacecraft to send back images from the surface of another planet.
1988 - Hurricane Joan hits Nicaragua and kills 148 people.
1992 - Rafik Al Hariri is appointed Lebanese Prime Minister.
1993 - Haiti’s last major gas retailer orders its pumps shut after UN-imposed oil embargo.
1996 - A cargo plane bursts into flames shortly after takeoff in Manta, Ecuador, and slams into a church bell tower, killing at least 30 people.
2002 - An Azerbaijani-owned freight and passenger ferry, the Mercury-2, sinks in storm-tossed Caspian Sea, killing 40 people.
2005 - A passenger jet crashes shortly after takeoff from Lagos, Nigeria, killing all 117 on board.
2007 - China’s Communist Party gives President Hu Jintao a second five-year term.
2008 - India launches Chandrayaan-1, its first unmanned mission to the moon.
2009 - Windows 7, the newest operating system from Microsoft, is launched worldwide.
2011 - Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Sultan Bin Abdul Aziz dies of cancer in New York.
2012 - American cyclist Lance Armstrong is stripped of his seven Tour de France titles and is banned for life for doping.
2013 - The first phase of the 13 megawatt solar project at Seih Al Dahal, Dubai’s first solar power plant, is inaugurated.
2014 - Sharjah International Airport opens a new Dh500 million second runway.
