Today is the 93rd day of 2011 There are 272 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight

1930: Ras Tafari becomes Emperor Haile Selassie of Abyssinia (Ethiopia).

Other Events

1941: British troops evacuate Libyan port of Bengazi during World War II.

1990: The Bulgarian parliament adopts legislation for free elections and appoints Petar Mladenov as president.

1992: Communist Ramiz Alia resigns as president of Albania, two weeks after a noncommunist parliament is elected.

1995: At least 150 Hutus, mostly women and children, are massacred in a single village in northeastern Burundi.

2001: The death toll in a meningitis outbreak in Burkina Faso tops 1,000. The government and the World Health Organisation scramble to secure vaccine to control the epidemic from spreading to neighbouring countries.

2003: The World Health Organisation reports 2,270 illnesses, including 79 deaths, from a spreading epidemic of a new respiratory ailment known as SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome.

2005: Iraqi lawmakers choose a Sunni Arab as their parliament speaker, clearing a major hurdle that held up the formation of a new government two months after the country’s first free elections in 50 years.

2006: Thailand’s prime minister claims victory but acknowledges a strong protest vote in an election held after weeks of demonstrations demanding his resignation for alleged corruption and abuse of power.

2007: A French V150 train with a 25,000-horsepower engine and special wheels breaks the world speed record for conventional rail trains, reaching 357.2 mph in the French countryside.

2008: Greek and Turkish Cypriot authorities tear down barricades and open a border crossing at Ledra Street for the first time in 44 years, boosting hopes for peace talks to reunite the island.

2009: John Demjanjuk, accused of being a Nazi death camp guard, marks his 89th birthday by winning a reprieve of his ordered deportation from the US to Germany to face possible trial.

2010: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says that new sanctions because of Iran’s nuclear defiance would only strengthen the country’s technological progress by encouraging it to become more self-sufficient.

Today’s Birthdays

Washington Irving, US writer (1783-1859); James Hertzog, South African statesman-soldier (1865-1942); Camille Chamoun, Lebanese statesman (1900-1988); Marlon Brando, US actor (1924-2004); Doris Day, US actress-singer (1924-); Helmut Kohl, German chancellor (1930-); Eddie Murphy, US actor (1961-); Alec Baldwin, US actor (1958-); David Hyde Pierce, US actor (1959-).