Swedish plane crashes during air show
1993 - A Swedish military jet crashed and exploded before horrified spectators at an air show, but the pilot ejected safely and nobody on the ground was seriously hurt in what officials called a miracle escape. An estimated half-million people were watching the air display over Riddarfjarden lake in Stockholm when the Jas 39 Gripen swooped down from a high loop, stood vertically on its tail then fell to the ground. “I thought it was a stunt, to show how slow the plane could fly while twisting in the air,” said Lars Eriksson, a spectator on the wooded island of Langholmen where the plane came down and burst into flames.
August 8
1876 - American inventor Thomas A. Edison receives a patent for his mimeograph.
1945 - US President Harry S Truman signs the United Nations Charter.
1962 -Jamaica becomes independent from the United Kingdom.
1963 - Britain’s ‘Great Train Robbery’ thieves steal £2.6 million (Dh12.5 million) in banknotes.
1980 - General Mohammad Yahya Khan, former president of Pakistan, dies in Rawalpindi.
1991 - Lebanese kidnappers free British TV producer John McCarthy after holding him hostage for five years.
1994 - Israel and Jordan open first road linking the two nations after 46 years.
2001 - Mohammad Khatami is sworn in for a second term as Iran’s president.
2012 - Sarat Attar becomes the first Saudi woman to compete in athletics in London Olympics.
2014 - WHO declares killer Ebola epidemic global emergency.
