Today is the 215th day of 2010. There are 150 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight

2007: A 94-year-old great-great-grandmother, Phyllis Turner, who left school at the age of 12 becomes the world's oldest recipient of a master's degree from University of Adelaide in Australia.

Other Notable Events

1460: King James II of Scotland is killed by the blast of a cannon saluting the arrival of his wife, Queen Mary, at Roxburgh Castle, England.

1492: Christopher Columbus sets sail from Palos, Spain, looking for a route to India across the Atlantic, encountering the New World instead.

1914: Germany declares war on France at the start of World War I.

1943: Anti-Nazi demonstrations are held in Milan, Genoa and other northern Italian cities during World War II.

1956: Gold Coast League Assembly adopts Kwame Nkrumah's resolution demanding independence from Britain.

1958: Atomic-powered US submarine Nautilus makes its first undersea crossing of North Pole.

1969: Israeli government leaders announces it will retain the Golan Heights, the Gaza Strip and a major part of the eastern and southern Sinai Peninsula — the areas captured from the Arabs in the June 1967 war.

1974: The Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO) declare a de facto cease-fire between rebel and Portuguese troops.

1988: Hard-line leader Sein Lwin clamps indefinite martial law on the capital of Myanmar.

1991: Russian branch formally breaks off from the Soviet Union's Communist Party to form a new party led by reform-minded Communists.

1995: Delegates from some 100 nations agree at the UN on a global treaty to prevent overfishing on the high seas.

1997: Political moderate Mohammad Khatami takes over as president of Iran.

1999: The US Justice Department rules that the government must pay the heirs of Abraham Zapruder US$16 million for his film of President John F Kennedy's assassination.

2001: The International Monetary Fund announces it will loan US$1.2 billion to Argentina and extend a US$15 billion line of credit to Brazil.

2002: Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian calls for legislation that would allow a referendum to be conducted on whether to declare independence from China.

2003: The United Arab Emirates-based Al Arabiya satellite television network broadcasts an audiotape warning allegedly from Ayman al-Zawahiri, a top deputy of Al Qaeda, that the US will pay a "dear price" if it harmed any prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

2005: French authorities find 351 foetuses and stillborn babies stored in bags and jars at a Paris hospital.

2008: At least 145 people are killed in a stampede of pilgrims at a remote Hindu temple in India.

2009: Huge crowds reminiscent of the 1986 "people power" demonstration take to Manila's streets to honour the passing of former President Corazon Aquino, who captured the hearts of Filipinos by ousting a brutal dictator and keeping democracy alive in the Philippines.

Today's Birthdays

Koshaku Yamagata Aritomo, first prime minister of Japan (1838-1922); Dolores del Rio, US-Mexican film star (1905-1983); Phyllis Dorothy (P D) James, British mystery writer (1920-); Martin Sheen, US actor (1940-); Martha Stewart, US lifestyle guru (1941-).

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