1996 - India named its second prime minister in as many weeks after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government resigned ahead of certain defeat in a parliamentary confidence vote. H.D. Deve Gowda, the leader of the United Front (UF) alliance of leftists and centrists, said he had been nominated as Prime Minister by President Shankar Dayal Sharma and would be formally sworn in on June 1. “The president has asked me to form the government,” Deve Gowda said. He later said the UF would work closely with the Congress party of former prime minister P.V. Narasimha Rao, which has promised to support the alliance, but not join the government. His nomination as Prime Minister-designate follows the resignation of Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
Other important events
1864 - Austria-Hungary’s Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian lands in Veracruz, Mexico, to become Emperor.
1956 - France cedes its former settlements in Pondicherry, Karikal and Mahe in India.
1961 - Paris-Bucharest Orient Express train makes final trip after 78 years.
1963 - Jomo Kenyatta becomes first Prime Minister of Kenya.
1964 - Palestine National Congress forms the Palestine Liberation Organisation in occupied Jerusalem.
1971 - Soviet Union launches spacecraft towards Mars, containing the first capsules to land on the planet.
1976 - US and Soviet Union sign treaty limiting the size of underground nuclear explosions set off for peaceful purposes.
1977 - Fire rages through the Beverly Hills Supper Club in Southgate, Kentucky, killing 165 people.
1979 - Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat announces opening of air corridors between Egypt and Israel.
1990 - Lech Walesa persuades rail workers to suspend a strike that had crippled train service in northern Poland.
1995 - At least 1,500 people die in an earthquake that destroys a coastal village on Sakhalin Island in Russia’s Far East.
1998 - Pakistan conducts five nuclear tests.
2001 - Malaysia’s Perkapalan Mesra wins the contract for dredging and land reclamation of the Palm Jumeirah for Dh991 million.
2004 - A court strips former dictator Augusto Pinochet of his immunity from prosecution in a surprise ruling.
2007 - The United States and Iran break a 27-year diplomatic freeze with a four-hour meeting in Baghdad about Iraqi security.
2008 - Nepal becomes a republic.
2011 - Egypt lifts a four-year-old blockade of Gaza Strip, easing travel restrictions on the 1.5 million residents of Occupied Palestinian Territory.
2012 - A raging fire kills 19 people, including 13 children in Villagio Mall, Doha, Qatar.
2014 - Bestselling author Maya Angelou dies at the age of 86.
2015 - Al Shabab wins the GCC Champions League football final against Oman’s Al Seeb.
