Two British ships sunk in Falklands war
1982 - British destroyer HMS Coventry was sunk, killing 20 men, and a requisitioned container ship was lost with four dead after a mass Argentine air attack off the Falkland Islands, British Defence Secretary John Nott said. Coventry was hit by the bombs as the warship stood off the northern tip of the Falklands on radar picket duty. The remaining 240 officers and crew were rescued, he said. He said four seamen were killed and a “small number” injured when a pair of Exocet missiles from two French-built Super Etendard fighter-bombers hit the merchant vessel Atlantic Conveyor, steaming towards the sound to unload equipment and supplies for the British beachhead at San Carlos. A Defence Ministry source said the missiles that hit the Atlantic Conveyor were intended for the aircraft carrier HMS Hermes.
May 25
1787 - The Constitutional Convention is convened in Philadelphia, in what is to become the United States of America.
1810 - Argentina begins a revolt against Spain.
1812 - Earthquake destroys Caracas, Venezuela.
1946 - Jordan gains independence from Britain and Abdullah becomes King.
1979 - An American Airlines DC-10 loses an engine shortly after take-off from Chicago’s O’Hare airport and plunges to the ground, killing 273 people.
1981 - Gulf Cooperation Council is formally launched in Abu Dhabi.
1985 - Kuwaiti Emir Shaikh Jaber Al Ahmad Al Sabah escapes an assassination attempt.
1989 - Mikhail Gorbachev is elected Executive President of the Soviet Union.
2000 - A lone gunman hijacks a Philippine Airlines domestic flight and seizes passengers’ valuables before making a mid-air exit from the aircraft at 6,000 feet.
2002 - A China Airlines passenger jet carrying 206 passengers and 19 crew members breaks up in the air and crashes into the Taiwan Strait.
2003 - Nestor Kirchner becomes President of Argentina.
2007 - Google Street View launched in the US.
2008 - Michel Sulaiman is sworn in as Lebanon’s President.
2010 - UAE signs a deal with South Korea to build four nuclear plants in the UAE.
2011 - A revamped e-government web portal is launched in Abu Dhabi.
2013 - Heavily-armed Maoist rebels kill 24 people, including Congress leaders, after ambushing a convoy in Chhattisgarh, India.
2015 - The UAE establishes the first space research centre in Al Ain.
