Boris Yeltsin was sworn in for a second term as Russian president in a brief ceremony, overshadowed by fears for the leader’s health and renewed bloodshed in the breakaway Chechen republic. In a Kremlin banquet speech following the swearing-in ceremony, Yeltsin pledged to continue decisively the task he began during his first term in office. “By the will of the people I will continue the task I began five years ago. Popular support gives me the right to act in a spirit of decision and firmness,” Yeltsin was quoted as saying by the Kremlin news service. However, the 65-year-old leader earlier looked stiff and ill at ease as he stood to take his oath of office, with his hand on a leather-bound, gold-embossed copy of the constitution. Yeltsin, who was re-elected head of state in a run-off election on July 3, completed the oath within two minutes, with the assistance of a prompter, invisible to the audience. He said nothing apart from the words of the oath, and stood silently listening to official speeches and a fanfare, followed by 30 ceremonial shots from the Kremlin canons.

Other important events:

1830 French parliament declares Louis-Philippe king after Charles X is forced to abdicate by the July Revolution.

1831 The first US steam locomotive runs between Albany and Schenectady, New York.

1842 US and Canada resolve a border dispute by signing the Webster-Ashburton Treaty.

1902 Edward VII is crowned king of England following the death of his mother, Queen Victoria.

1919 Anglo-Persian agreement is signed at Tehran to preserve integrity of Persia.

1936 American athlete Jesse Owens becomes the first Olympian to win four gold medals at Berlin Olympics.

1940 Estonia becomes a constituent republic of the Soviet Union.

1945 US aircraft drops world’s second atom bomb on Nagasaki, Japan.

1954 Greece, Yugoslavia and Turkey sign treaty of mutual assistance.

1956 UN Security Council adopts US-proposed resolution calling for ceasefire between Greek and Turkish Cypriots on Cyprus.

1965 Singapore proclaims its independence from the Malaysian Federation.

1975 Two river boats collide near Canton, China, and 500 people are reported drowned.

1976 The Soviet Union launches its Luna 24 space probe to collect soil samples from the Moon.

1984 France and Britain start an international effort to help clear the Red Sea of mines.

1989 In Mexico, a train falls into the San Rafael River after a bridge collapses, killing 112 people.

1994 Hijackers kill a Cuban navy lieutenant and force four sailors overboard before setting sail in the commandeered vessel for the US.

1995 A Guatemalan jet crashes in driving rain into a volcano in central El Salvador, killing all 60 people abroad.

1996 Sir Frank Whittle, the inventor of the jet engine, has died, aged 89.

1999 Boris Yeltsin names ex-KGB spy Vladimir Putin as his heir.

2000 Lebanese army returns to the south of the country for the first time in some 30 years.

2002 South Korean President Kim Dae-jung appoints Chang Dae-whan as the new prime minister.

2008 Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish dies in a US hospital following heart surgery.

2009 Typhoon Morakat pummels China’s eastern coast, forcing nearly a million people to flee to safety.

2012 Jamaica’s Usain Bolt becomes the first man to win both the 100 and 200-metres race at two successive Olympics.

2014 Katie Ledecky sets world record for swimming in a 400 metre freestyle at the US Championships.