Today is Tuesday, May 25, the 145th day of 2010. There are 220 days left in the year.

Today’s highlight

2009: President Barack Obama assails North Korea for new missile tests, saying the world must stand up to Pyongyang and demand that it honour its promise to abandon its nuclear programme.

Other notable events

1622: The Tryal, believed to be first English ship to sight Australia, is wrecked on rocks in the Monte Bello Islands off Western Australia.

1744: Austrian troops invade Alsace in France.

1787: The Constitutional Convention is convened in Philadelphia.

1846: Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte escapes to London from imprisonment in Ham, France. He returns two years later and is elected president of France.

1911: Revolution in Mexico overthrows President Porfirio Diaz.

1914: Britain’s House of Commons passes Irish Home Rule Bill, but Irish autonomy remains suspended during World War I.

1915: With the European powers preoccupied by war, China is forced to accept a Japanese ultimatum regarding rights and privileges.

1923: Independence of Transjordan — now Jordan — under Amir Abdullah is proclaimed.

1961: US President John F. Kennedy asks the nation to work toward putting a man on the moon by the end of the decade.

1963: Leaders of six African nations, meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, form Organisation of African Unity.

1969: Parliamentary government in Sudan is overthrown in bloodless coup and Major General Jafaar Numeiry heads new military regime.

1970: United States places first of its MIRV missiles, with multiple warheads capable of striking different targets, in underground silos in North Dakota.

1979: American Airlines DC-10 loses an engine and nosedives into ground at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, killing all 272 people aboard.

1985: Emir of Kuwait escapes death when terrorists detonate a bomb in his motorcade. Extremist Jihad Islamic organisation claims responsibility.

1986: An estimated seven million Americans participate in ‘Hands Across America’, forming a line across the country to raise money for the nation’s hungry and homeless.

1988: Israeli army imposes curfews confining 200,000 Arabs as PLO-mandated general strike shuts down commerce and transportation in occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

1989: Chinese Premier Li Peng denies that troops surrounding Beijing are deployed to crush student protests.

1991: In a two-day airlift, Israel brings 15,000 Ethiopian Jews from the besieged city of Addis Ababa to Israel.

1992: Jay Leno makes his debut as permanent host of NBC’s Tonight Show, succeeding Johnny Carson.

1997: Rebels topple the government of Sierra Leone in a violent coup; Polish voters adopt a constitution that removes the last traces of communism.

1998: Indonesia’s new president, BJ Habibie, announces that elections will be held and begins releasing some political prisoners.

1999: NATO’s top policy makers approve a plan for a 50,000-strong force to be sent to Kosovo when Serb troops withdraw.

2000: The Chinese army begins removing British names from military buildings in Hong Kong.

2001: Human rights organisation Amnesty International marks 40 years of activism. The organisation which won the Nobel Prize in 1977 has dealt with the cases of 47,000 prisoners of conscience.

2002: A China Airlines passenger jet carrying 206 passengers and 19 crew members breaks up in the air and crashes into the Taiwan Strait.

2003: The Israeli cabinet votes to accept the steps outlined in an internationally endorsed “road map” for Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts, but notes that it is not declaring unqualified support for the road map as a whole.

2005: Suspected Basque rebels detonate a powerful car bomb during rush hour in Madrid, injuring 52 people in the sixth attack since Spain’s prime minister offered the group negotiations if it renounces violence.

2006: Sudan says it will permit the UN to lay the groundwork for possible deployment of a peacekeeping force in Darfur, but cautions that the world body’s role would be smaller than some Security Council members want.

2007: North Korea fires a salvo of test missiles into its coastal waters, flexing naval muscles as South Korea launches its most advanced destroyer ever, armed with a high-tech US air defence system.

2008: Michel Suleiman is sworn in as Lebanon’s president after parliament elected him in a long-delayed vote following an 18-month political stalemate that brought the country to the brink of another civil war.

Today’s birthdays:

Ralph Waldo Emerson, US writer (1803-1882); Josip Broz Tito, Yugoslavia’s president (1892-1980); Beverly Sills, US opera singer (1929-2007); Ian McKellen, English actor (1939-); John Newcombe, Australian tennis star (1944-); David Graham, Australian golfer (1946-); Mike Myers, Canadian actor/comedian (1963-); Lauryn Hill, US singer (1975-); Frank Oz, British-born director/voice of Yoda and Miss Piggy (1944-).