Unknown assailants fired two rockets from a parked car on Prime Minister Rafik Hariri’s Future TV building, causing extensive damage to one of the news studios. There were no casualties. The attack on the building, which also houses the premises of Hariri’s Orient Radio station, is in an upscale, beachside west Beirut neighbourhood. Hariri inspected the wrecked studio but did not issue a statement. The rockets were fired from a white BMW with a forged licence plate parked across from the TV building. The rockets started a fire that gutted one of the newsrooms. A station worker managed to carry four large gas cylinders in the studio’s kitchen away from the flames. As an investigation was continuing and debris being removed, Future TV was broadcasting as normal on both its satellite and earth channels.
Other important events:
1785 Two French balloonists die in the world’s first fatal aviation crash.
1862 Turkish forces bombard Belgrade after a Serb uprising there.
1896 The deadliest tsunami in Japan’s history kills more than 22,000 people.
1904 More than 1,000 people die in fire aboard steamboat General Slocum off New York City.
1919 John William Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown complete the first non-stop flight across the Atlantic, flying from Newfoundland to Ireland.
1934 The Great Smoky Mountains National Park is established in the US.
1954 The Union of European Football Associations (Uefa) is founded in Basel, Switzerland.
1970 Martial law is declared in Turkey after serious rioting breaks out.
1977 Spaniards go to the polls in the first democratic elections there since 1936.
1978 King Hussain of Jordan marries 26-year-old American Lisa Halaby, who becomes Queen Noor.
1980 The Dubai Electricity Company’s steam power and desalination plant is opened at Jebel Ali.
1987 A West German military supply ship operating in the Baltic Sea is hit by artillery fire from a Warsaw Pact navy vessel.
1992 The Japanese Parliament approves the use of troops overseas for the first time since the Second World War.
1996 A bomb explodes in a van near a shopping centre in Manchester, England, injuring more than 200 people.
1998 Nigeria’s new military leadership releases nine of the country’s most prominent political prisoners, including General Olusegun Obasanjo.
1999 Yugoslav forces withdraw from Kosovo’s border region with Albania.
2002 The ruling Czech Social Democrats win the general elections.
2005 Australian hostage Douglas Wood is freed in Baghdad after six weeks in captivity.
2007 Ethiopia accepts a UN commission’s ruling to turn over a disputed town to Eritrea.
2009 Saudi Arabia and the UAE reach agreement on ending a truck crisis at the border.
2013 Moderate cleric Hassan Rouhani is declared Iran’s new president.
2014 Casey Kasem, the internationally famous radio broadcaster, dies at the age of 82.
2015 The Chicago Blackhawks win their first Stanley Cup title with a 2-0 victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning.
2016 The FNC passes draft law banning the ownership of exotic animals.
