1997 - Australia’s most successful rock singer, Michael Hutchence was found dead in a luxury Sydney hotel. The 37-year-old lead singer of INXS, had hanged himself with his own belt. The death of Hutchence, who combined hard-driving rock with a hard-living rock star lifestyle, sent shockwaves through the music industry. His lover, British TV presenter Paula Yates, the mother of his young daughter, was said to be devastated after hearing the news at the couple’s London home. The singer’s apparent suicide took friends and acquaintances by surprise.
Other important events
1906 - The SOS distress signal is adopted at the International Radio Telegraphic Convention in Berlin.
1915 - British and Turks battle indecisively at Tsiphon, Mesopotamia.
1916 - Jack London, pioneering American novelist, short story writer and social activist dies.
1935 - The flying boat China Clipper leaves San Francisco on the first trans-Pacific airmail flight.
1943 - Lebanon gains independence after two decades of French mandate rule.
1947 - Iran Assembly nullifies oil agreements with Soviet Union.
1963 - US President John F. Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas, Texas.
1967 - UN Security Council approves Resolution 242, which calls for Israel to withdraw from territories it captured in 1967 Six-Day War.
1972 - US President Richard Nixon lifts 22-year-old ban on American travel to China.
1974 - UN General Assembly gives the Palestine Liberation Organisation observer status.
1975 - Juan Carlos I becomes King of Spain.
1986 - American Mike Tyson becomes the youngest boxer to win world heavyweight crown after knocking out Trevor Berbick in Las Vegas.
1988 - The US Air Force unveils the B-2 stealth bomber to the public.
1989 - Lebanese President Rene Muawad and at least 15 other people are killed in a powerful blast in Beirut.
1990 - British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher resigns after 11 years in office.
1992 - Nato warships begin a blockade of Yugoslav territorial waters and a ceasefire virtually collapses.
1993 - Mexican Senate approves North American Free Trade Agreement.
1999 - Abdul Khader Hachani, a moderate leader of Algeria’s banned Islamic Salvation Front, is fatally shot in Algiers.
2001 - Steve Bennett launches “the world’s first private spaceship” from Cumbria.
2005 - Angela Merkel becomes first female Chancellor of Germany.
2006 - Nepal celebrates the end of a bloody 10-year-old communist insurgency.
2010 - 378 die in a stampede in Cambodia’s annual water festival.
2012 - Sudan arrests former spy chief Sala Gosh and other senior military and security officers for foiled plot.
2014 - Large numbers of voters cast their ballots in Bahrain’s parliamentary elections.
2016 - The Science and Innovation Park is inaugurated at the UAE University in Al Ain.
