Today is the 297th day of 2012. There are 69 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight

2011: Andrew Holness is sworn in as Jamaica's ninth prime minister, one day after his predecessor Bruce Golding bids farewell to the nation in a televised address.

Other Events

1953: Federal Constitution of Rhodesia and Nyasaland goes into effect.

1954: Britain, France, US and Soviet Union agree to end occupation of Germany.

1962: Soviet Union warns that a US blockade of arms shipments to Cuba may risk a thermonuclear war.

1989: Tens of thousands of Hungarians demand end to communism on anniversary of 1956 uprising.

1991: The four warring factions in Cambodia sign a peace treaty in Paris paving the way for the return of refugees and democratic elections.

1996: A historian reveals that the Swiss bank accounts of presumed Holocaust victims were used to settle Switzerland's postwar compensation disputes with Poland and Hungary.

1997: South Africa's Nelson Mandela receives a hero's welcome in Libya, and calls for the United Nations to lift sanctions that are harming "our African brothers and sisters".

1998: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat agree on a breakthrough land-for-peace West Bank accord after eight days of negotiations in the United States.

1999: Illinois' George Ryan pays the first visit to communist Cuba by a US governor since Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution, declaring he has come "to build bridges between people".

2001: Indonesia's parliament passes a bill granting the rebellious province of Irian Jaya sweeping autonomy, a greater share of resource revenues and a new name — Papua.

2005: Hurricane Wilma punishes Mexico's Caribbean coastline for a second day, ripping away storefronts, peeling back roofs and forcing tourists and residents trapped in hotels and shelters to scramble to higher floors. At least seven people are killed.

2006: Hungary commemorates the 50th anniversary of its uprising against Soviet rule.

2007: NASA's space shuttle Discovery and a crew of seven rocket into orbit in pursuit of the international space station, where a formidable construction job awaits them.

2010: Barbados Prime Minister David Thompson dies of pancreatic cancer.

2011: Cries of panic and horror fill the air as a 7.2-magnitude earthquake strikes eastern Turkey, killing at least 138 people as buildings pancaked and crumpled into rubble.

Today's Birthdays

Louis Riel, Canadian rebel leader (1844-1885); Johnny Carson, former US Tonight Show host (1925-2005); Pele, Brazilian soccer star (1940-); Michael Crichton, US author (1942-2008); Ang Lee, Taiwanese film director (1954-); Weird Al Yankovic, US musical parodist (1959--).