This Day in History - July 10

Today is the 191st day of 2010. There are 174 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight

1973: The Bahamas gains independence after three centuries of British rule.

Other Notable Events

1559: Mary, Queen of Scots, claims title of Queen of England in opposition to Elizabeth I. Her political actions provoke rebellion among the Scottish nobles and she is beheaded in 1587 as a Catholic threat to the English throne.

1609: The Catholic League is formed in Munich to oppose the Protestant Union, raising tensions in Germany that erupts in Thirty Years' War.

1962: Telstar satellite is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, bringing live television from the US to Europe for the first time.

1990: Russia's Mikhail Gorbachev is re-elected leader of Soviet Communist Party.

1991: Boris Yeltsin takes oath of office as first elected president of Russia; US President George Bush lifts economic sanctions against South Africa.

1992: Polish parliament approves the country's first female prime minister, Hanna Suchocka.

1995: Opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi is freed from house arrest in Rangoon, Burma — now known as Yangon, Myanmar — days before completing her six-year detention.

1999: Six nations fighting in Congo's civil war sign a long-awaited peace accord, but squabbling rebels balk, dashing hopes for a speedy end to the continent's biggest conflict.

2002: Marine archaeologists discover the PT-109 warship piloted by the late US President John F Kennedy during World War II off the Soloman Islands.

2004: Saudi Arabia says it will hold municipal elections in September, the first polls to be held in decades in the conservative kingdom, where political parties are banned and press freedoms are limited.

2007: Pakistani troops storm the compound of Islamabad's Red Mosque after a week-long standoff, prompting a fierce firefight with pro-Taliban militants accused of holding about 150 hostages inside. At least 50 rebels and eight soldiers are killed.

2008: Kuwait announces it will name its first ambassador to Iraq since Saddam Hussein's troops invaded the country in 1990, a major step in healing the two countries' painful past.

2009: Pope Benedict XVI stresses the church's opposition to abortion and stem cell research in his first meeting with President Barack Obama, pressing the Vatican's case with the US leader who is already under fire on those issues from some conservative US Roman Catholics and bishops.

Today's Birthdays

Jean Calvin, French religious reformer (1509-1564); Camille Pissarro, French painter (1830-1903); Marcel Proust, French writer (1871-1922); Toyohiko Kagawa, Japanese writer (1888-1960); Giorgio de Chirico, Italian painter (1888-1978); Saul Bellow, US writer (1915-2005); Hugo Banzer, president of Bolivia (1926-2002); Arthur Ashe, US tennis player (1943-1993); Jessica Simpson, pop singer/actress (1980-).