First Tridex opens in Abu Dhabi
1998 - The first Triple International Defence Exhibition (Tridex ‘98) opened in Abu Dhabi with more than 220 exhibitors from around the globe displaying the latest in defence technology. The five-day exhibition, which has been organised under the patronage of His Highness Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, heralds the birth of a new series of defence shows in the Middle East. The exhibition was opened by General Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and UAE Minister of Defence. He was accompanied by Chief-of-Staff of the UAE Armed Forces, Lt General Shaikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
March 15
1848 - Hungarian intellectuals stage bloodless revolution against Austro-Hungarian Empire.
1894 - France and Germany agree on boundaries between French Congo and Cameroons.
1903 - British conquest of northern Nigeria is complete.
1913 - US President Woodrow Wilson holds the first open presidential news conference.
1937 - The world’s first blood bank is established at Chicago’s Cook County Hospital by Dr Bernard Fantus.
1956 - The musical My Fair Lady opens on Broadway.
1968 - The Beatles release their hit single Lady Madonna.
1976 - An Irish Republican Army bomb explodes on a London Underground train at West Ham Station, no one is injured.
1986 - A six-storey hotel collapses in Singapore, trapping more than 150 people under the rubble.
1989 - The town of Taba, on the Sinai Peninsula, is returned to Egypt after being occupied by Israel since the Six-Day War of 1967.
1990 - Mikhail Gorbachev is elected Executive President of the Soviet Union.
1992 - An earthquake in eastern Turkey kills an estimated 800 people.
1996 - Pioneering aviation firm Fokker collapses, ending 77 years of Dutch aircraft manufacturing.
1999 - The first phase of a Dh300 million project to supply natural gas to homes in Sharjah is officially inaugurated.
2003 - Hu Jintao becomes President of China.
2005 - Twenty-six people are killed when police storm a maximum security prison in Manila.
2006 - Libya signs nuclear research agreement with France.
2007 - Hamas and Fatah forge a unity Palestinian government.
2009 - A leftist television journalist Mauricio Funes wins El Salvador’s presidential elections.
2013 - China parliament names Li Keqiang as new Prime Minister.
2015 - Twin bomb blasts outside two churches in a Christian neighbourhood in Lahore, Pakistan, kill 15 people.
2016 - Myanmar’s lawmakers elect Htin Kyaw to become the country’s first civilian president in decades.
