1983 American golfer Tom Watson wins his fifth British Open golf championship victory in nine years at Royal Birkdale. As he admitted afterwards, he had a lot to prove last week. His one-shot triumph over fellow Americans Hale Irwin and Andy Bean was his first win since he took the fourth British Open title at Royal Troon last year. “After a year, this tastes very sweet,” he said. And it was much more rewarding for him than last year when he posted a final round which did not seem good enough and then watched from the clubhouse while Nick Price of South Africa faded away in the stretch. Watson, 33, played that final nine in 34 strokes, three under par and with three birdies and no bogeys in the most testing of conditions.
Other important events
1762 Peter III, Czar of Russia, is assassinated a week after he abdicates the throne.
1868 The city of Edo is replaced by Tokyo City as Japan’s capital.
1918 Bolsheviks kill the last Russian czar, Nicholas II, and his family.
1951 Baudouin I becomes King of Belgium after his father Leopold III abdicated.
1955 Disneyland, the first Disney amusement park, opens its gates in Anaheim, California.
1968 Iraqi president Abdul Rahman Arif, is overthrown in a bloodless coup.
1973 Afghanistan is proclaimed a republic, following a palace coup that ends the 40-year rule of King Zaher Shah.
1975 US astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts in Apollo and Soyuz spacecraft link up while in orbit and join hands.
1991 US and Soviet Union reach the final agreement on a Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start).
1996 TWA jumbo jet explodes over the Atlantic shortly after takeoff, killing 228 people aboard.
2000 Bashar Al Assad is sworn is as President of Syria.
2006 A two-metre-high tsunami crashes into beach resorts and fishing villages on Java island, killing more than 300 people.
2013 At least 25 children and a cook die after eating a contaminated midday meal at a school in Patna, India.
2014 Malaysian Airlines MH17 flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur crashes, killing all 295 on board.
2016 Three police officers are killed in shooting near a gas station in Baton Rouge, US.
