Today is the 216th day of 2012. There are 150 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight

1962: Her Royal Highness Princess Margaret and her husband the Earl of Snowdon — who are in Jamaica for the island’s first independence celebrations — are hosted at an official welcome at the Palisaodes Airport in Kingston.

Other 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.

1645: Denmark loses much land to Sweden at peace of Broemsebro.

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.

1974: The Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO) declare a de facto ceasefire 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-mindead 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.

2000: The European Union opens an antitrust case against Microsoft.

2001:

The International Monetary Fund announces it will loan US$1.2 billion

to Argentina and extend US$15-billion line of credit to Brazil. 2002:

Taiwanese President Chen Shuibian calls for legislation that would allow

a referendum to be conducted on whether to declare independence from

China.

2005: French authorities find 351 fetuses and stillborn

babies stored in bags and jars at a Paris hospital. 2007: A 94-year-old

great-greatgrandmother,

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.

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.

2010: BP embarks on an operation that could seal the

biggest offshore oil leak in US history once and for all, forcing mud

down the throat of its blown-out well in the Gulf of Mexico in a tactic

known variously as "bullheading" or a "static kill".

Today's Birthdays

James

Wyatt, English architect (1746-1813); Koshaku Yamagata Aritomo, first

prime minister of Japan (1838-1922); Dolores del Rio, US-Mexican film

star (1905-1983); Phyllis Dorothy (PD) James, British mystery writer

(1920-); Tony Bennett, US singer (1926-); Martin Sheen, US actor

(1940-); Martha Stewart, US lifestyle guru (1941-).

— Jamaica Observer and AP