Today’s highlights

1963: The Hon Donald Sangster, Jamaica’s Minister of Finance, is appointed Deputy Prime Minister.

Other Notable Events

1913: Britain and Germany agree on frontier between Nigeria and Cameroon.

1917: British forces capture Baghdad during World War I.

1965: A white minister from Boston, the Rev James Jeeb dies after whites beat him during civil rights disturbances in Selma, Alabama.

1966: President Sukarno of Indonesia is forced to delegate wide powers to army Gen Suharto, who later replaces him.

1975: Two Portugal Air Force planes attack military barracks in Lisbon in what is called an attempt to overthrow left-wing military government.

1977: Brazil cancels 25-year-old military assistance treaty with the US because of US State Department report criticising its alleged human rights violations.

1985: Politburo leader Mikhail S Gorbachev is chosen to succeed the late Soviet President Konstantin U Chernenko.

1989: Two dozen nations sign declaration in the Netherlands enlisting United Nations as watchdog against pollution of Earth’s atmosphere.

1990: Lithuanian Parliament declares independence from Soviet Union.

1993: North Korea withdraws from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in a harsh rebuff of Western demands to open suspected nuclear weapons development sites for inspection.

1994: Eduardo Frei becomes president of Chile.

1995: Afghan government forces using rockets, artillery and fighter jets pound Kabul’s southern suburbs in an assault aimed at dislodging rival Islamic forces.

1996: The trial of former South Korean presidents Roh Tae-woo and Chun Doo-hwan, charged with carrying out a 1979 coup and massacring pro-democracy protesters, opens in Seoul.

1998: South Korea says it will compensate women who were enslaved in Japanese army brothels in World War II, then recover the money from Japan.

1999: Indonesia and Portugal agree on a UN-sponsored referendum for the people of East Timor to decide whether they want autonomy or independence from Indonesia.

2002: Fifteen are killed and more than 50 others injured in a fire and stampede at a girls’ school in Saudi Arabia. Religious police prevented male firefighters and paramedics from rescuing the girls because they were not wearing the black head-to-toe covering required by Saudi law.

2004: A series of bombs hidden in backpacks explode in quick succession, blowing apart four commuter trains in Madrid, Spain, killing at least 199 people and wounding more than 1,400. Spain initially blamed Basque separatists but a shadowy group claimed responsibility in the name of al-Qaeda for the worst terrorist attack in Spanish history.

2006: Former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic, while being tried at The Hague for war crimes after orchestrating a decade of bloodshed that killed 250,000 people and broke up his country, is found dead after a heart attack in his prison cell.

2007: Heavily armed police kill a protester and arrest Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the main opposition party in Zimbabwe, as they violently break up a prayer meeting protesting government policies.

2008: The Belgian government and banks agree to pay $170 million (euro110 million) to Holocaust survivors, families of victims and the Jewish community for losses during World War II. About half of the 50,000 Jews in Belgium were exterminated in the Holocaust.

2009: A 17-year-old wielding a Beretta 9m pistol bursts into a classroom in his former high school in Germany and guns down students in a rampage that leaves 15 dead before he takes his own life.

Today’s Birthdays

Torquato Tasso, Italian poet (1544-1595); Louis Florence d’Epinay, French author (1726-1783); Christian Ditlev, Count Reventlow, Danish statesman who abolished serfdom (1748-1827); Astor Piazzolla, Argentine musician (1921-1992); Douglas Adams, British writer (1952-2001); Rupert Murdoch, US/Australian media magnate (1931-); Alex Kingston, British actress (1963-); Terrence Howard, US actor (1969-).