This page gathers what happened on this date across different years, in Kuwait first and then in the world. It grows every year: anything added later about 27 August finds its place here rather than on a new page.
In Kuwait
1963 — The first Soviet ambassador presents his credentials
Mikhail Cherkasov presented his credentials to the amir, Sheikh Abdullah Al Salem Al Sabah, as the Soviet Union’s first ambassador to Kuwait. It came two years after independence, in the same year Kuwait joined the United Nations as its hundred and eleventh member.
1995 — The Bones Roundabout becomes United Nations Square
The flags of Kuwait and the United Nations were raised over what had been known as the Bones Roundabout, as part of Kuwait’s marking of the organisation’s fiftieth anniversary. From that day the square carried the name of the United Nations.
2001 — A Kuwaiti in a UN mandate that lasted seven years
UN secretary-general Kofi Annan appointed Dr Ghanim Al Najjar, professor of political science at Kuwait University, to follow the human rights file in Somalia.
A detail rarely mentioned: the official list of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights records that Al Najjar held the mandate from 2001 to 2008. The mandate itself was created in 1993 and seven people have held it since; none stayed in it longer than he did.
In the world
1859 — The first commercial oil well
In Titusville, Pennsylvania, Edwin Drake’s drilling reached oil at sixty-nine and a half feet. The driller who did the work was a blacksmith and salt-well driller named William Smith, known as Uncle Billy. From that shallow well began the industry Kuwait would later be built on.
1928 — A pact outlawing war
Fifteen states signed the Briand-Kellogg pact in Paris, named after the French foreign minister Aristide Briand and the US secretary of state Frank Kellogg. The pact set out two commitments: renouncing war as an instrument of national policy, and settling disputes by peaceful means alone.
Sources: Kuwait News Agency KUNA · Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights · Drake Well Museum · Office of the Historian, US Department of State.
Kuwait One, once a week.
The most useful stories we published this week, in your inbox.
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
