Today in History

April 8

1759 - British forces take Madras (now Chennai), India.

1902 - Russia and China reach agreement for evacuation of Manchuria.

1913 - Chinese Republic’s first parliament opens.

1919 - Russian Communist army enters the Crimea.

1945 - Soviet Army frees Ravensbruck concentration camp. 1946 - The League of Nations meets in Geneva for the last time. 1950 - India and Pakistan sign a pact in New Delhi on the treatment of minorities.

1961 - British cargo vessel explodes in the Arabian Gulf, killing 236.

1990 - Hungarians vote in first free election in more than 40 years. 1992 - Yasser Arafat survives a 15hour ordeal in the Sahara after his plane crash-lands in Libya.

1994 - Japan’s eight-month-old government collapses as Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa announces his resignation.

1996 - Shelling and gunfire rage in Monrovia, Liberia, sending at least 15,000 civilians fleeing to a US Embassy compound. 2002 - A bomb explodes in a Jalalabad marketplace in an apparent assassination attempt on Afghan Defence Minister Mohammad Qassim Fahim.

2004 - Algerians vote in a presidential election seen as a landmark for democracy.

2007 - UAE Cabinet approves the setting up of the National Committee for Combating Human Trafficking. 2008 - The Bahrain World Trade Centre opens.

2009 - Injaz, the world’s first cloned camel, is born at the Camel Reproduction Centre in Dubai. 2010 - US and Russia sign a treaty to reduce nuclear weapons to their lowest levels.

2013 - Margaret Thatcher, former prime minister of Britain, dies following a stroke at the age of 87. 2014 - A bomb blast on a train in Pakistan’s southwestern province of Balochistan kills at least 18 people.

2016 - Lebanon sentences former information minister Michel Samaha to 13 years in jail for attempting to carry out terror attacks.

2017 - India and Bangladesh sign 22 pacts in key sectors including defence and civil nuclear in New Delhi.