Today is the 355th day of 2010. There are 10 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight

2005: Britain’s most famous gay couple — Sir Elton John and Canadian filmmaker David Furnish — tie the knot in a much-anticipated ceremony, capping the first week of legalised civil unions for same-sex couples in the UK.

Other Events

1817: Governor Lachlan Macquarie formally adopts name “Australia” for British colony.

1898: Radium is discovered by scientists Pierre and Marie Curie.

1960: Saudi Arabia’s Premier Emir Faisal resigns, and King Saud takes over government.

1967: Louis Washkansky, first man to undergo heart transplant, dies in Cape Town, South Africa, 18 days after surgery.

1971: Austrian diplomat Kurt Waldheim is chosen secretary-general of the UN.

1972: East and West Germany formally sign treaty ending more than two decades of official enmity.

1975 – Terrorists raid meeting of OPEC in Vienna, Austria. Eleven delegates and others are taken hostage, and two guards are killed.

1979: Peace agreement signed, ending seven-year Rhodesian guerrilla war and 15-year rebellion against the British crown.

1988: A Pan Am jet explodes over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people in the air and on the ground. Libyan agents are tried for the bombing.

1990: Albanian government orders removal of all statues and symbols bearing Josef Stalin’s name.

1992: A chartered Dutch jumbo jet with 340 people aboard breaks apart and bursts into flames while trying to land in Faro, Portugal, in a storm. Fifty-two travellers and two crew members are killed.

1993: Russian President Boris Yeltsin dissolves the powerful Security Ministry, saying the successor to the KGB secret police failed to warn him of dangerous political currents in Russia.

1998: After a quick trial, Chinese dissidents Xu Wenli and Wang Youcai are sentenced to more than a decade behind bars for trying to register the China Democracy Party.

2003: The Sudanese government and rebel group Sudan People’s Liberation Army reach a tentative deal to evenly divide the country’s oil wealth as part of negotiations to end its 20-year-old civil war.

2004: Tens of thousands of Filipinos fill Manila’s streets for the funeral of Fernando Poe Jr, the actor-turned-presidential candidate who came to symbolise the aspirations of the country’s poor.

2007: Ignoring works by Matisse, Renoir and Van Gogh, thieves steal two paintings — one by Pablo Picasso and another by Candido Portinari — in the first successful heist in the 60-year history of Brazil’s premier modern art museum.

2008: Poland’s president celebrates the start of Hanukkah by visiting Warsaw’s main synagogue, a gesture the city’s Jewish community greets as a historic step in its revival.

2008: Three African armies have launched an offensive against Ugandan rebels based in eastern Congo in an attempt to end one of the continent’s longest and most brutal wars, military officials say.

Today’s Birthdays

Benjamin Disraeli, English statesman-author (1804-1881); Mohammed Ali Jinnah, founder of Pakistan (1876-1948); Joseph Stalin, Soviet leader (1879-1953); Kurt Waldheim, former Austrian president and UN secretary-general (1918-2007); Kel Nagle, Australian champion golfer (1920-); Alicia Alonso, Cuban-born ballerina (1921-); Jane Fonda, US actress (1937-); Samuel L Jackson, US actor (1948-); Julie Delpy, French actress/director (1969-).