Today's Highlight

1962: The flame which will light the fire at the Opening Ceremony of the ninth Central American and Caribbean Games at the newly constructed National Stadium in Jamaica arrives aboard the Mexican Warship Zacatecas.

Other Events

480 BC: Greek troops led by Spartan King Leonidas are overcome by the Persians at Thermopylae after a heroic stand.

1615: Second War of Religion breaks out in France.

1898: Spain formally accepts peace terms ending Spanish-American War.

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

1936: In a blow to Hitler's plan to have the Berlin Olympics prove Aryan superiority, black US athlete Jesse Owens becomes the first Olympian to win four Olympic gold medals.

1942: Britain arrests Indian nationalist Mohandas Gandhi. He is interned until 1944.

1943: The Press Association of Jamaica convenes its first general meeting.

1945: US plane drops second atomic bomb, destroying more than half of Nagasaki, Japan, and killing an estimated 74,000. Despite nuclear proliferation, it marks the last time any country has used such a device for mass destruction in combat.

1951: Afghanistan signs friendship treaties with Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

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

1965: Singapore proclaims its independence from the Malaysian Federation.

1974: Richard Nixon becomes the first US president to resign from office. Gerald R Ford succeeds him.

1979: Nicaragua's new government announces a series of reforms designed to restore normal life to the country and stimulate the economy.

1988: Army troops in Yangon, Myanmar, open fire on thousands of demonstrators who call for overthrow of President Sein Lwin.

1990: UN Security Council unanimously declares Iraq's annexation of Kuwait invalid. Iraq seals its borders, raising concern about thousands of foreigners in Iraq and Kuwait.

1999: Russian President Boris Yeltsin fires his Cabinet, naming Vladimir Putin as his new prime minister.

2000: Lebanese security forces move into the former Israeli-occupied zone in southern Lebanon, restoring a semblance of state authority for the first time in 24 years to a region torn by conflict.

2004: Russian bailiffs freeze the assets of Yukos' main production unit, days after a court ruled their seizure illegal.

2005: A Cuban official calls on the US government to release five Cuban men serving long terms on espionage conspiracy charges after a US federal appeals court threw out their convictions and sentences.

2007: Mauritania passes a law promising jail time for slave-holders, an important step in the northwest African country's push to eliminate a practice that has quietly persisted despite a 25 year-old ban.

2008: The fatal stabbing of the father of a former Olympian at a Beijing landmark casts a sad shadow over the first full day of Olympic competition, just hours after China's jubilant opening of the summer Games.

— Jamaica Observer and AP