This Week In History
May 16, 1881
The world’s first electric tram line opened in Lichterfelde near Berlin, Germany, using a trolley pole to feed power from electric wires strung above the tram route 1967: French President Charles de Gaulle imposed a virtual veto on Britain’s application to join the EEC 1996: Romano Prodi, leader of the Olive Tree alliance, was asked to form a government in Italy 1996: Paleontologists in Morocco discovered a 1.5m dinosaur skull, from a carnivore bigger than T-rex 2006: A Stradivarius violin dating from 1707 sold for a then record Us$3.5mil at auction in New York
May 17, 2007
Trains from North and South Korea crossed the heavily fortified border for the first time since the Korean War, described by both as a milestone for reconciliation 1997: Rebel leader Laurent Kabila declared himself head of state in Zaire as his troops entered Kinshasa
2001: Oxfam said millions of coffee farmers were facing poverty while corporations made record profits 2012: Facebook became a public company, valued at Us$104bil, but share prices soon fell away
2016: Brent crude prices neared US$50 a barrel as militant attacks in Nigeria disrupted supplies
May 18, 1291
The last Christian stronghold in the Holy Land fell to the Mamluk Sultan of Egypt, al-ashraf Khalil. The fall of Acre marked the end of the Jerusalem crusades
1974: India became the world’s sixth nuclear power when it successfully detonated its first nuclear bomb 1993: Los Angeles airport closed for 40 minutes while President Clinton had his hair cut on Air Force One 1994: The US Food and Drug Administration approved the sale of the first genetically-engineered tomato
2007: Deep sea explorers revealed the world’s biggest maritime treasure trove, valued at Us$500mil
May 19, 2018
Britain’s Prince Harry married US actress Meghan Markle. The new Duke and Duchess of Sussex chose to quit the Royal Family in 2020 and relocated to California
1991: Croatia voted for independence from Yugosla viaina referendum
2004: Lulu the kangaroo became the firs t marsupial to win a National Award for Valour for saving the life of her owner
2011: US President Obama declared that the borders in place prior to the 1967 Arab-israeli war should form the basis of a Middle East peace deal
2017: Hassan Rouhani was re-elected President of Iran by a huge margin
May 20, 2020
Cyclone Amphan devastated eastern India and Bangladesh, forcing the evacuation of four million people. Damage was estimated at over Us$13bil
1977: The Orient Express, once the epitome of luxury travel, set off from Paris on its final journey to Istanbul 1991: The Soviet parliament approved in principle a law allowing its citizens to travel abroad freely 1996: Lee Teng-hui, first democratically elected leader of Taiwan, was inaugurated as president
2006: Construction of China’s Three Gorges Dam was completed nine months ahead of schedule
May 21, 1991
Former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, son of assassinated premier Indira Gandhi, was himself killed by a suicide bomber as he campaigned for re-election 1871: The French army entered Paris to crush the Communard uprising 1966: Cassius Clay, later Muhammad Ali, defeated Henry Cooper to retain the world heavyweight boxing crown 1996: The mummified body of a young Inca girl, sacrificed around 500 years ago, went on display in Washington DC
2020: Numbers of cases of Covid-19 were reported to have reached over five million, but the true number was thought be much higher
May 22, 1921
The US city of Zion City banned women from wearing short skirts and exposing bare necks and arms in public, with fin es of up to US$200 for transgressors
1906: Wilbur and Orville Wright patented their method of flight control on their “Flying Machine” 1960: A magnitude 9.5 earthquake, the most powerful ever recorded, struck southern Chile
1996: Japan settled lawsuits after hundreds died from mercury-tainted seafood between 1953 and 1960 2006: A brown bear spotted in Bavaria was the first seen roaming wild in Germany for 175 years