1996 - The Gulf Diagnostic Centre (GDC), the UAE’s most comprehensive, will help save a lot of money for nationals wishing to get professional diagnosis in the country, a top government official said. “The centre will mean that a lot of money which was spent on seeking diagnostic services abroad will be saved,” Lt. General Shaikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Chief of Staff of the UAE Armed Forces, said after inauguration. The GDC, with an investment of Dh26 million will offer residents of the UAE and other Gulf and Middle East countries almost every known type of medical diagnostic service under one roof. The GDC is a joint venture of a leading US aerospace firm and an Abu Dhabi-based company specialising in medical systems.
Other important events
1643 - An English Parliamentarian force under Oliver Cromwell takes the town of Gainsborough.
1821 - Peru declares independence from Spain.
1914 - The First World War begins as Austria and Hungary declare war on Serbia.
1915 - US forces invade Haiti.
1935 - The first flight of the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress takes place.
1937 - Japan seizes Beijing.
1976 - An earthquake in northern China kills at least 242,000 people.
1982 - Soviet fencer Vladimir Smirnov, who suffered an accidental sword blow to the head during the World Fencing Championships in Rome, dies in hospital after nine days.
1984 - The Olympic Games open in Los Angeles.
1986 - A car stuffed with explosives rips through a densely populated Christian residential area of east Beirut, killing at least 32 and wounding 140.
1988 - Indian badminton champion Syed Modi is shot dead.
1996 - Ethiopian Fatuma Roba becomes the first African to win a gold medal in the women’s Olympic marathon in Atlanta.
2002 - At least 78 people are killed when a Ukrainian Airforce Sukhoi Su-27 jet smashes into crowds watching an air show in Lviv, Ukraine.
2004 - More than 120 people are killed in a suicide bombing and clashes in Iraq.
2005 - The Irish Republican Army formally announces an end to its armed campaign against British rule in Northern Ireland.
2006 - A UN human rights panel urges the US to shut ‘secret’ jails.
2008 - Lebanese singer Suzan Tamim is found dead in her Dubai Marina apartment.
2010 - An Airblue plane, on a domestic flight from Karachi to Islamabad, crashes into the Margalla Hills.
2012 - Saudi Arabian and Qatari women participate for the first time in the Olympics in London
2013 - Lewis Hamilton wins the Hungarian Grand Prix from pole position, his first victory for Mercedes.
2015 - A Libya court sentences Saif Al Islam, son of slain leader Muammar Gaddafi, along with eight others, to death.
