Today is the 286th day of 2011. There are 79 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlights

1923: Ankara, formerly Angora, becomes new capital of Turkey.

Other Events

1880: Transvaal declares independence from Britain.

1889: Boers rebel against British in South Africa.

1957: The East German government seals its borders and recalls all East-mark holdings for conversion into a new currency.

1968: New military government in Panama names civilian cabinet.

1969: Soviet Union sends third spacecraft into orbit in as many days, putting seven cosmonauts in space.

1970: Canada and China announce they will establish diplomatic relations. Taiwan promptly breaks ties with Canada.

1981: Voters in Egypt participate in a referendum to elect Vice President Hosni Mubarak as the new president, one week after the assassination of Anwar Sadat.

1987: Costa Rica’s President Oscar Arias Sanchez wins Nobel Peace Prize for sponsoring plan to end civil wars in Central America.

1988: Egyptian author Naguib Mahfouz becomes first Arabic-language writer to win Nobel Prize for literature.

1992: The pyramids, the Sphinx and other monuments survive Cairo earthquake that kills at least 400 and injures more than 4,000.

1993: A fanatic fan of tennis star Steffi Graf is convicted in the stabbing of rival Monica Seles and receives a two-year suspended sentence.

1994: In the largest deal between software firms, Intuit Inc accepts a US$1.5 billion takeover offer from Microsoft Corp.

1996: In response to strikes in its Canadian plants, General Motors Corp. lays off more than 1,300 workers at its Cadillac assembly plant outside Detroit.

1997: Queen Elizabeth II begins visit to India to mark the 50th anniversary of the subcontinent’s independence from Britain.

1999: French lawmakers adopt a law giving unwed gay and straight couples the same rights previously limited to the married. Similar legislation already exists in several European countries.

2006: Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank he founded win the Nobel Peace Prize for their pioneering use of tiny loans — microcredit — to lift millions out of poverty.

2007: Myanmar’s junta arrests three of the country’s most prominent political activists, believed to be among the last leaders remaining at large from a student group at the forefront of a 1988 democracy uprising and the protests that started in August.

2010: With remarkable speed — and flawless execution — miner after miner climbs into a cramped cage deep beneath the Chilean earth, and is hoisted through 2,000 feet (610 metres) of rock and sees precious sunlight after the longest underground entrapment in history.

Today’s Birthdays

Yves Montand, Italian-born French singer-actor (1921-1991); Margaret Thatcher, British prime minister (1925-); Paul Simon, US singer (1941-); Marie Osmond, US actress/singer (1959-); Sacha Baron Cohen, British actor (1971-).