1992 Britain’s Heritage Secretary David Mellor resigned from the Government after battling for almost two months to remain in the Cabinet against a background of unremitting publicity about his private life. An announcement from Downing Street confirmed. Mellor spent just 167 days in the post, created after this year’s election victory for the Tories. The job carries a range of responsibilities, including broadcasting, film, the arts, sport, tourism, heritage and the proposed national lottery. Mellor, 43, who is to stay in the Commons as an MP sent resignation letter to Prime Minister John Major. The resignation, accepted by Major with “deep regret”, spared Mellor the ignominy of his career being decided, in effect, at meeting of the executive of the 1922 Committee of backbench Conservative MPs, whose 18 members were predominantly against his remaining in office. Mellor’s departure brought to an end the most protracted British ministerial crisis of recent years. Ever since the local newspaper reported that he had had an affair with the actress Antonia de Sancha, he has been fighting to save his career.
Other important events
1852 French inventor Henri Giffard makes the first flight in a powered airship, cruising
with steam power over Paris.
1903 Alfred Deakin succeeds Edmund Baston as Australia premier.
1943 Soviet army crosses Dnieper River north of Kiev as Germans retreat in Second World War.
1946 Cathay Pacific Airways is founded in Hong Kong
1957 Camp Nou, the largest stadium in Europe, is opened in Barcelona.
1960 The USS Enterprise, the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, is launched.
1968 Swaziland joins the United Nations.
1973 Guinea-Bissau declares its independence from Portugal.
1981 A four-man Armenian ‘suicide squad’ shoots its way into the Turkish consulate in France, killing a security guard.
1982 The US government lifts the military sanctions that it had imposed on Argentina during the war with Great Britain over the Falkland Islands.
1987 Armed forces seize control of Transkei, one of South Africa’s black homelands, ousting the prime minister.
1989 Austria’s Gerhard Berger stormed to victory in an action-packed Portuguese Grand Prix.
1990 East Germany formally withdraws from Warsaw Pact.
1991 Lebanese kidnappers free Jack Mann in Beirut after being captive for 865 days.
1993 Philippine court sentences Imelda Marcos, former first lady, to 24 years in jail for corruption charges.
1995 PLO and Israel sign a pact, expanding Palestinian rule in the West Bank.
1996 US and other major nuclear powers sign a treaty to end all testing and development of nuclear weapons.
2002 Two gunmen attack a Hindu temple complex in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, killing at least 30 people and wounding 74 before being killed by commandos.
2006 Swiss voters ratify new asylum and immigration laws.
2008 Luxury hotel Atlantis on the Palm Jumeirah, Dubai is opened to the public.
2010 Nigerian authorities open the gates at two swollen dams in the country’s rain-soaked north, sending a flood into a neighbouring state.
2011 UAE elects 20 representatives for the 2011 Federal Nation Council.
2013 A major earthquake hits a remote part of western Pakistan, killing at least 45 people.
2014 An overcrowded bus plunges off a mountain road into a reservoir in a Himalayan region in India, killing 23 people.
2015 At least 769 people are killed in stampede in Mina, Saudi Arabia.
