1991 - Kuwait celebrated three months of liberation from Iraqi forces by ending martial law. The termination of martial law means that suspects tried for collaboration are now entitled to the appeal process under Kuwait’s constitution. A newly appointed tribunal hearing the cases of some 600 alleged collaborators postponed until June the cases of 17 Iraqi, Jordanian and Kuwaiti suspects in an arraignment-like proceeding that differed sharply from the first trial one week ago. The recent appointment of the five new judges who heard cases was a development welcomed by human rights observers monitoring the trials. “The fact that they assigned new judges to the trials is a positive step,” said Kenneth Roth, deputy director of Human Rights Watch.
Other important events
1868 - US President Andrew Johnson avoids impeachment by one vote.
1887 - British East Africa Company is chartered.
1894 - Emanuel Lasker becomes world champion chess player.
1906 - Vauxhall Bridge is opened in London.
1913 - Emily Duncan becomes the first woman magistrate in Britain.
1924 - US President Calvin Coolidge signs a bill limiting immigration in United States, completely excluding the Japanese.
1942 - German forces begin their drive for Stalingrad and the Caucasus in the Second World War.
1954 - The funeral ship of Pharaoh Cheops is discovered in Egypt near the Pyramid of Giza.
1956 - A fire on board the aircraft carrier USS Bennington in Narragansett Bay, off Rhode Island, kills 103 crew.
1964 - China rejects an appeal by Britain to help stop fighting in Laos.
1966 - British Guiana becomes the independent nation of Guyana.
1972 - President Richard M. Nixon and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev sign the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in Moscow.
1981 - A bomber crashes during a night landing on the flight deck of the USS Nimitz, killing 14 people.
1989 - Chinese Communist Party Chief Zhao Ziyang is put under house arrest.
1990 - Boris Yeltsin fails to win a majority in balloting for Russian presidency.
1993 - Pakistan Supreme Court restores the dissolved National Assembly.
1994 - The US renews trade privileges for China.
1999 - India joins an elite club of commercial satellite-launching nations.
2007 - Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern’s long-dominant party, Fianna Fail, celebrates its sixth straight election win.
2010 - The space shuttle Atlantis returns from orbit for the last time, ending a 25-year flying stint.
2013 - Nico Rosberg wins the Monaco Grand Prix and gives Mercedes its first victory of the season.
2014 - Narendra Modi takes his oath as the new Prime Minister of India.
