Saudi Arabia celebrates entry into World Cup
2001 - Saudi Arabia became the first Arab team to reach three successive World Cup finals after a crushing 4-1 win over Thailand. Celebrations went on well after dawn in the Saudi capital of Riyadh. Security forces were deployed to prevent roads from being blocked in Riyadh as dozens of cars roamed the streets, honking their horns in victory. But the “Green” team owed their qualification to rival football power and group favourites Iran, who imploded again at a crucial time. They went down 3-1 in a bad-tempered match against Bahrain in a dramatic final round of Asian qualifiers. Throughout the matches in Riyadh and Manama, groups of young men gathered in cafes, sipping tea and smoking while zapping between the two games on giant television screens.
October 22
1836 - Sam Houston is inaugurated as the first elected President of the Republic of Texas.
1873 - Emperors of Germany, Russia and Austria-Hungary form an alliance.
1932 - Charles de Broqueville becomes Prime Minister of Belgium.
1938 - American patent attorney and amateur inventor Chester Carlson invents the photocopier.
1947 - India and Pakistan go to war over Kashmir.
1953 - Laos gains full independence from France.
1954 - West Germany joins the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.
1962 - United States President John F. Kennedy announces a blockade of Cuba.
1965 - The song Get Off of My Cloud by the Rolling Stones is released in England.
1975 - Soviet spacecraft Venera 9 soft-lands on Venus and becomes the first spacecraft to send back images from the surface of another planet.
1987 - An Iranian Silkworm missile crashes into Kuwait’s offshore supertanker terminal.
1988 - Hurricane Joan hits Nicaragua and kills 148 people.
1992 - Rafik Hariri is appointed as Lebanon’s Prime Minister.
2002 - An Azerbaijani-owned freight and passenger ferry, the Mercury-2, sinks in storm-tossed Caspian Sea, killing 40 people.
2005 - A passenger jet crashes shortly after takeoff from Lagos, Nigeria, killing all 117 on board.
2007 - China’s Communist Party gives President Hu Jintao a second five-year term.
2008 - India launches Chandrayaan-1, the first unmanned mission to the moon.
2009 - Windows 7, the newest operating system from Microsoft, is launched worldwide.
2011 - Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Sultan Bin Abdul Aziz dies of cancer in New York.
2012 - American cyclist Lance Armstrong is stripped of his seven Tour de France titles and is banned for life for doping.
2013 - The first phase of the 13 megawatt solar project at Seih Al Dahal, Dubai’s first solar power plant, is inaugurated.
2014 - Sharjah International Airport opens a new second runway for Dh500 million.
