Honecker returns to Berlin jail
1992 - Former East German leader Erich Honecker, the man who built the infamous Berlin Wall, arrived back in Berlin to face manslaughter charges. The hardline Communist was met by German justice officials after he arrived aboard a Russian Aeroflot plane at West Berlin’s Tegel airport. He then got into a black limousine and was driven to Moabit prison in a motorcade of a dozen police cars and a red ambulance. Honecker, 79, who ruled East Germany with a tight grip for 18 years until a popular uprising in 1989, left the Chilean embassy in Moscow after seven months of diplomatic wrangling between Bonn, Santiago and Moscow. He made the defiant clenched-fist salute of the Communist movement as he left the embassy compound.
July 29
1858 - United States and Japan sign their first commercial treaty.
1890 - Dutch Artist Vincent van Gogh dies of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in Auvers, France, at the age of 37.
1900 - Italy’s King Humbert I is assassinated.
1937 - Eighteen-year-old Crown Prince Farouk is crowned king of Egypt.
1938 - Jenny Kammersgaad of Denmark becomes the first person to swim across the Baltic Sea.
1948 - King George VI opens 14th modern Olympic Games in London.
1957 - The International Atomic Energy Agency is established.
1958 - The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) is founded in US.
1965 - The Beatles’ film Help! is released in the United Kingdom.
1967 - Fire sweeps the USS Forrestal in the Gulf of Tonkin, killing 134 sailors.
1973 - Voters in Greece endorse the abolition of the Greek monarchy.
1979 - Singapore Airlines flight carrying Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew aborts its takeoff at Dubai airport when two tyres burst and the plane skids off the runway.
1980 - Iran’s Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi is laid to rest at Al Rifaie mosque in Cairo.
1981 - Prince Charles marries Lady Diana Spencer in London.
1987 - Sri Lankan President Junius Jayewardene and Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi sign a controversial peace pact in Colombo.
1989 - Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani wins presidential elections in Iran.
1999 - The first express rail service between Amman and Damascus begins with six new trains.
2002 - Egypt’s rights activist Sa’ad Ebrahim is sentenced to seven years in jail.
2007 - Iraq wins the 2007 football Asian Cup in Jakarta.
2008 - Emirates’ Airbus A380 makes a historic landing in Dubai.
2009 - Microsoft and Yahoo unveil a 10-year deal which gives Microsoft access to Yahoo users.
2011 - 18 miners killed in two coal mine explosions in eastern Ukraine.
2014 - A massive blaze continues to rage at a fuel depot near Tripoli’s airport after it was hit by a rocket during clashes between rival militias.
