Today is the 247th day of 2010. There are 118 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight

1970: In Chile, Salvador Allende becomes the first Marxist freely elected president in the Western hemisphere.

Other Events

1929: German dirigible Graf Zeppelin completes trip around world.

1957: Egypt and Syria form economic union.

1964: British Commonwealth troops move against Indonesian guerrillas in Malaya.

1974: US establishes diplomatic relations with East Germany, the last major western nation to do so.

1990: Prime ministers of South and North Korea meet for the first time; US President George H W Bush asks Congress to write off Egypt's $7 billion debt to the US as a sign of appreciation for help in Gulf War.

1993: Fighting breaks out in eastern Liberia and spills over for the first time into the Ivory Coast.

1995: The UN women's conference opens in Beijing.

1996: New Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shakes the hand of Palestine Liberation Organisation chief Yasser Arafat at a meeting on the Israel-Gaza border to help clear the air of animosity.

1998: The first genocide sentence by an international court is handed down by UN tribunal in Arusha, Tanzania, which condemns a former Rwandan prime minister to life in prison for the slaughter of more than 500,000 Rwandans.

2001: Mahendra Chaudhry, Fiji's first ethnic Indian prime minister, is elected to Parliament along with George Speight, who overthrew Chaudry's government 16 months ago.

2002: A court in Jakarta, Indonesia's capital, convicts the speaker of parliament, Akbar Tandjung, on charges of abuse of power and corruption, sentencing him to three years in prison.

2007: Hurricane Felix slams into Central America and Hurricane Henriette hits Baja, California as a record-setting hurricane season gets even wilder with twin storms making landfall on the same day.

Today's Birthdays

Francois Chateaubriand, French author (1768-1848); Anton Bruckner, Austrian composer (1824-1896); Daniel Burnham, US architect/city planner (1896-1912); Antonin Artaud, French poet (1896-1948); Henry Ford II, US industrialist (1917-1987); Dawn Fraser, Australian Olympic swimming champion (1937-); Damon Wayans, US actor/comedian (1960-); Beyonce Knowles, singer/actress (1981-).

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