ON THIS DAY- On this day in 1869, the Khedival Opera House in Cairo was dedicated, after being built on the orders of the Khedive Ismail to celebrate the opening of the Suez Canal. Verdi’s opera Rigoletto was the first opera performed at the opera house on that day. The building, which burned down in 1971, was designed by architects Pietro Avoscani and Rossi. In 1952, the US tested “Ivy Mike,” the first thermonuclear bomb, which carried the Teller-Ulam design, with its power resulting from an uncontrolled, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction. The Grand National Assembly, at the behest of Kemal Atatürk, voted to abolish the sultanate of Turkey and declare itself a republic on this day in 1922. Apple’s current CEO Tim Cook, born in 1960, celebrates his birthday today. Two years ago, authorities were downplaying the role the terrorists at Wilayit Sinai might have had with the Metrojet flight 9268 crash. Enterprise readers were reading reports of traders suggesting that the “drop” of the EGP to 18.00 to the greenback “might be overblown,” this time last year.