Today, Thursday, April 15, is the 105th day of 2009. There are 260 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight

1923: Insulin, discovered by Canadian Dr Frederick Banting, is made available for general use by diabetics.

Other Notable Events

1856: Britain, France and Austria guarantee integrity and independence of Turkey.

1891: Katanga Company is formed under Leopold of Belgium’s direction to exploit copper deposits in what is today the southernmost province in Congo.

1912: The passenger luxury liner SS Titanic sinks and more than 1,500 lives are lost; Harriet Quimby becomes the first woman to fly across the English Channel.

1927: Chiang Kai-Shek organises government at Nanking in China.

1945: British and Canadian troops liberate the Nazi concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen.

1959: Cuban leader Fidel Castro arrives in Washington, DC, to begin a goodwill tour of the US.

1968: Two unmanned Soviet satellites link up while in orbit around Earth.

1974: Military coup in West African country of Niger overthrows government of President Hamani Diori.

1989: Students in Beijing launch a series of pro democracy protests upon the death of former Communist Party leader Hu Yaobang. The protests culminated in the Tiananmen Square massacre.

1992: Sanctions go into effect against Libya for refusing to surrender two suspects in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103.

1994: More than 100 nations adopt a 26,000-page agreement reforming international trade known as the “Uruguay Round” accords in Marrakesh, Morocco.

1996: More than 100 rebels ambush a six-vehicle military convoy near the border with Ecuador, killing 31 Colombian soldiers and wounding 16.

1997: A fire sweeps across a pilgrims’ encampment outside Mecca as two million Muslims gather for one of Islam’s most sacred rituals, killing at least 343 people.

1998: Pol Pot, leader of the Khmer Rouge, dies at 73, evading prosecution for the deaths of two million Cambodians in the 1970s.

2003: US President George W Bush declares an end to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s regime, less than a week after US forces seized Baghdad and US and Kurdish forces entered Kirkuk and Mosul in northern Iraq.

2004: Two factions of the rebel National Liberation Front of Tripura in north-eastern India agree to halt their two-decade separatist campaign and hold peace talks with New Delhi. A third NLFT faction continues to reject peace talks.

2005: Flames and smoke send people jumping from windows of a budget hotel in Paris housing many African immigrants in an overnight fire that leaves 20 dead — half of them children.

2006: China announces tariff cuts on imports of fruit and fish from Taiwan, offering the self-ruled island new trade concessions in an effort to boost sentiment for uniting with the communist mainland.

2007: The remains of a World War II navigator, Air Force 1st Lt Archibald Kelly, listed as missing in action for almost 63 years are identified two years after they were found in Croatia. His B-24 bomber crashed on July 22, 1944.

2008: Nepal’s former rebels, now known as the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), win more than half of the directly elected seats that will shape the Himalayan nation’s political future.

2009: About 100 young Afghan women protesting a law that allows husbands to demand sex from their wives are pelted with stones by angry men who call them “dogs”, in a confrontation that highlights the explosive nature of the women’s rights debate in Afghanistan.

Today’s Birthdays

Nanak, guru and founder of Sikhism (1469-1539); Leonhard Euler, Swiss mathematician (1707-1783); Henry James, US author (1843-1916); A Philip Randolph, US civil rights leader/trade unionist (1889-1979); Bessie Smith, US blues singer (1898-1937); Kim Il-Sung, North Korean dictator (1912-1994); Emma Thompson, British actress (1959-); Seth Rogen, Canadian actor/writer (1982-); Emma Watson, British actress (1990-).