2001 - The legal jousting by the one-time merger partners came as Enron said it would lay off about 4,000 employees. Their plight was overshadowed by the high-stakes battle brewing between the cross-town Houston rivals and the growing impact of Enron’s collapse on the world’s markets. If a judge accepts Enron’s petition for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, it would be the biggest in US history. Enron listed $49.8 billion (Dh182.76 billion) in assets, easily dwarfing the $35.9 billion held by Texaco when it filed for bankruptcy in 1987. In its lawsuit filed, Dynegy sought an immediate injunction demanding that the Enron subsidiaries which own the Northern Natural Gas pipeline turn it over. Dynegy chairman and chief executive officer Chuck Watson promised he would sue Enron for “frivolous and disingenuous” legal action.
Other important events
1804 - Napoleon Bonaparte crowns himself emperor of France in Paris.
1815 - Britain signs peace treaty with Nepal.
1848 - Austrian Emperor Ferdinand I abdicates in favour of Franz Joseph I.
1854 - Austria concludes alliance with Britain and France.
1950 - United Nations agrees to hand over Eritrea to Ethiopia.
1969 - The Boeing 747 jumbo jet makes its debut as 191 people fly from Seattle to New York City.
1971 - Britain terminates all treaties with Trucial States in the Gulf, leading to the UAE’s formation.
1976 - Fidel Castro becomes president of Cuba.
1982 - In the first operation of its kind, doctors at the University of Utah Medical Centre implant a permanent artificial heart.
1986 - Riots in New Delhi in protest against terrorist killings in Punjab state.
1988 - Benazir Bhutto is sworn in as prime minister of Pakistan, the first woman prime minister of a Muslim nation.
1989 - Viswanath Pratap Singh is sworn in as Indian Prime Minister.
1990 - Chancellor Helmut Kohl wins a landslide victory in the first pan-German elections since 1932.
1991 - Kidnappers release American Joseph Cicippio, held hostage in Beirut for more than five years.
1993 - Drug lord Pablo Escobar, one of the world’s most wanted men, is killed in a gunfight with security forces in Colombia.
1994 - Ferry carrying more than 600 people sinks in Manila Bay, Philippines.
1995 - A Singapore court sentences former trader Nick Leeson to six-and-a-half years in prison in the crash of Britain’s oldest merchant bank.
2004 - Gunfire crackles across Haiti’s capital, killing a dozen people.
2007 - A record-breaking UAE flag, measuring 50,000 square feet, is displayed in Abu Dhabi.
2009 - Iran frees five British sailors, detained when their racing yacht drifted accidentally into Iranian waters.
2010 - Qatar wins bid to host Fifa World Cup 2022.
2012 - The seventh highest flagpole is inaugurated in Sharjah, opposite Al Jazeera park.
2015 - Pakistan origin couple open fire in San Bernardino at a Christmas party killing 14 people.
