Today, Thursday April 8, is the 98th day of 2010. There are 267 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight

1992: Tennis great Arthur Ashe announces at a New York news conference that he has AIDS. He dies in February 1993 of AIDS-related pneumonia at age 49.

Other Notable Events

1906: The Algerias act is signed, giving France and Spain chief control in Morocco.

1907: Britain and France sign a convention confirming independence of Siam — now Thailand.

1913: First parliament of Chinese Republic opens.

1946: The League of Nations assembles in Geneva for the last time.

1991: European Community approves more than $180 million in food, clothing and other aid to Kurdish refugees in Iraq.

1992: Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is found alive in the Libyan desert, 12 hours after his plane crashes, killing three aboard.

1994: Warring factions in Rwanda agree to form an interim government in an effort to halt bloodletting in Kigali.

1997: Zaire’s President Mobutu Sese Seko declares a nationwide state of emergency in response to rebel advances.

1998: Police and army troops take over Bolivia’s coca leaf and cocaine producing region, sweeping aside roadblocks put up by protesters during a week of violence that left at least four dead.

2000: Bolivia’s president declares a state of emergency, sending police into the streets to try to quell demonstrators, who were protesting rising water rates, unemployment and other economic hardships.

2001: The Dalai Lama wraps up a 10-day visit to Taiwan during which he stresses that Taiwan’s future should be decided by the Taiwanese people. He avoids directly addressing Taiwanese and Tibetan independence.

2002: A bomb explodes in a Jalalabad marketplace in an apparent assassination attempt against Afghan Defence Minister Muhammad Qassim Fahim, whose motorcade was passing by the market.

2005: Some 800,000 people gather in a vast field in Krakow to join in Pope John Paul II’s funeral by video link, and schools and businesses close across the country as Poland mourns a national hero.

2006: A capsule carrying Brazil’s first astronaut, along with a Russian and an American, lands in the Kazakh steppe after separating from the international space station and hurtling through Earth’s atmosphere.

2008: More than 400 children, mostly girls in pioneer dresses, are swept into state custody from a polygamist sect in what authorities describe as the largest child-welfare operation in Texas history.

2009: The American crew of a hijacked ship takes control of the vessel from Somali pirates but the captain is still held hostage in a lifeboat.

Today’s Birthdays

Phineas Fletcher, English poet (1582-1650); Sonja Henie, Norwegian skater (1912-1969); Franco Corelli, Italian tenor (1923-2003); Jacques Brel, Belgian singer (1929-1978); Julian Lennon, English pop singer (1963-); Robin Wright Penn, US actress (1966-); Patricia Arquette, US actress (1968-); Seymour Hersh, US author/investigative reporter (1937-).