Today in Histoy: Yasser Arafat travelled to the West Bank after 27 years in exile, determined to turn Palestine into a state

The following are some of the major events to have occurred on July 5:

1945 – U.S. General Douglas MacArthur announced the liberation of the whole of the Philippines in World War Two.

1945 – John Curtin, prime minister of Australia during most of World War Two, died.

1948 – The state-run National Health Service came into being in Britain.

1954 - The BBC broadcasts its first television news bulletin.

1975 – Arthur Ashe beat fellow American Jimmy Connors to become the first black tennis player to win the Wimbledon men’s singles title.

1989 – Former White House aide Oliver North was fined $150,000 for his role in the Iran-Contra scandal that rocked the Reagan administration.

1994 – Yasser Arafat travelled to the West Bank after 27 years in exile, determined to turn Palestinian-ruled areas into a state with its capital in East Jerusalem.

2000 – Turkey’s appeals court confirmed a one-year jail sentence imposed on Islamist former prime minister Necmettin Erbakan for provoking hatred in a 1994 speech.

2002 – Legendary baseball star Ted Williams, one of the greatest hitters of all time and the last American to hit .400 for a season, died aged 83.

2006 – Ken Lay, founder of the U.S. energy conglomerate Enron Corp, died of heart disease six weeks after being convicted of fraud and conspiracy in the financial scandal that brought the company down.

2012 – “The Shard” building in London is inaugurated, becoming Europe’s tallest building.

2016 – NASA’s Juno space probe enters orbit of Jupiter.