Today is the 28th day of 2012. There are 338 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight

1813: The novel Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen was first published in London, anonymously.

Other Events

1547: England's King Henry VIII dies and is succeeded by his 9-year-old son, Edward VI.

1596: English navigator Sir Francis Drake dies off Panama's coast and is buried at sea.

1689: Britain's Parliament declares that James II has abdicated; Germany's Baron Melas devastates the Palatinate.

1846: East India Company troops defeat Sikhs at Aliwal in India.

1871: France surrenders in the Franco-Prussian War.

1885: British relief force reaches Khartoum, and the Sudan is evacuated.

1902: The Carnegie Institute, a non-profit organisation to conduct basic research and advanced education in biology, astronomy and earth sciences is established in Washington, DC

1909: US control in Cuba is ended.

1912: A lynch mob drags former President General Eloy Alfaro and his lieutenants through the streets of Quito, Ecuador, and burn them to death.

1915: The US Coast Guard is created by an Act of Congress.

1916: Louis D Brandeis is appointed by President Woodrow Wilson to the Supreme Court, becoming its first Jewish member.

1932: Japanese troops occupy Shanghai in China.

1945: First US truck convoy reopens Burma Road in World War II.

1949: UN Security Council adopts resolution to establish a ceasefire in Indonesia, then known as the Dutch East Indies.

1961: Rwanda's provisional government proclaims republic.

1962: US unmanned spacecraft, Ranger III, fails to hit the moon and passes it at a distance of 35,200 kilometres (22,000 miles).

1964: Riots break out in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia -- known today as Harare, Zimbabwe.

1980: Six US diplomats who avoided being taken hostage at their embassy in Tehran fly out of Iran with the help of Canadian diplomats.

1983: Labour group Solidarity's underground leaders call on Poland's factory workers to prepare for nationwide general strike as "the only way to break down the existing dictatorship."

1986: Space shuttle Challenger explodes moments after lift-off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, killing all seven crew members.

1990: Life in Azerbaijani capital of Baku returns to normal as Armenian and Azerbaijani separatists withdraw from border regions.

1991: Soviet troops seize and shut down two Lithuanian customs posts.

1992: Leadership of National Liberation Front, which won Algeria's independence and ruled for three decades, resigns.

1993: France's ambassador to Zaire is killed by a stray bullet as soldiers riot and loot shops and foreigners' homes in Kinshasa.

1994: Three Italian journalists are killed by a mortar shell in Mostar, Bosnia.

1995: In the bloodiest day so far in Egypt's Islamic insurgency, police shoot to death 14 suspected militants, and extremists kill two policemen and two civilians.

1996: In Sarajevo, three British soldiers are killed when their armoured personnel carrier hits a land mine and a Swedish soldier dies when his vehicle slides off the road.

1997: In Algiers, an assassin shoots and kills the leader of Algeria's largest labour union -- a key presidential ally and an opponent of the Islamic insurgency.

1998: A judge in Poonamallee, India, convicts 26 conspirators linked to Sri Lanka's separatist Tamil Tiger rebels in the 1991 suicide bombing assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and orders all to be hanged.

1999: India and Pakistan meet in their first cricket match in the subcontinent in 12 years. Pakistan walks away with a 12-run victory after a nail-biting finish.

2000: A plane brings 19 sick and weak-looking adolescents home to Uganda after months -- or possibly years --of captivity under Ugandan rebels based in southern Sudan. Some 5,000 children are believed to have been kidnapped by the rebels over the past decade according to UNICEF.

2001: A Ukrainian vessel sinks in the Black Sea, killing at least 14 people. Five were reported missing and 32 were rescued.

2003: Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's right-wing Likud party wins the parliamentary elections, soundly defeating the center-left Labour Party and extending Sharon's leadership for another four-year term. The Labour Party suffered its worst-ever defeat at the polls.

2007: Britain's Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, met with New York schoolchildren as they visited Harlem during their whirlwind American weekend. Roger Federer captured his 10th Grand Slam singles title at the Australian Open, beating Fernando Gonzalez 7-6 (2), 6-4, 6-4.

2008: Thousands of machete-wielding youths riot in Kenya, setting buses and homes ablaze and hunting down members of President Mwai Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe. A month of violence triggered by rigged presidential elections gathers frightening momentum with a death toll topping 800.

2009: A caterpillar plague in Liberia spreads, affecting 400,000 people in more than 100 villages in the West African nation, the UN says.

2010: A court rules that former French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin did not take part in a smear campaign against President Nicolas Sarkozy, a verdict that means the two rivals may soon be sparring in the political arena again.

2010: German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister David Cameron swing their weight behind calls to clinch a global trade deal, citing it as a key test for the international community's ability to cooperate in reviving the world economy.

Today's Birthdays

John Barclay, Scottish satirist (1582-1621); John Baskerville, English typographer (1716-1775); Alan Alda, US actor (1936--); Joey Fatone Jr, US singer/game show host (1977- ); Nick Carter, US singer (1980- ); Elijah Wood, US actor (1981- ); Sarah McLachlan, Canadian singer (1968- ) French President Nicolas Sarkozy (1955- ); Rapper Rick Ross (1978- ); Rapper J Cole (1985- ); Actress Ariel Winter (TV: Modern Family) is (1998- )

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