Today is the 189th day of 2012. There are 177 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight

1997: Britain’s House of Lords backs a bill that would give princesses equal rights with princes in succession to the throne.

Other Events

1753: Act is passed for naturalisation of Jews in England.

1898: US annexes island of Hawaii.

1991: King Hussein of Jordan cancels martial law provisions that went into effect after Jordan lost the West Bank in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

1993: Hurricane Calvin hits the Mexican mainland, leaving a trail of flooding and destruction along the Pacific Coast.

1994: Yemen’s two-month civil war ends when northern troops overrun the southern capital.

1998: Nigeria’s most prominent political prisoner, Moshood Abiola, dies of an apparent heart attack a few days before he was expected to be released.

2002: At least 34 miners die when a fire breaks out in a coal mine in the eastern Ukraine region of Donetsk.

2003: US President George W Bush’s administration acknowledges for the first time that Bush relied on faulty intelligence when he claimed in his January State of the Union address that Iraq had sought to buy uranium from Africa.

2004: The government announces that the US military will review the individual cases of the 595 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to determine whether they are legally held.

2005: A string of rush-hour explosions tear into at least three London subway trains and a double-decker bus in the worst attack on London since World War II, killing at least 52 people and injuring 700.

2006: Spain reports its first case of H5N1 bird flu, discovered in a wild fowl in a marshland area.

2010: Scientists say ancient man ventured into northern Europe far earlier than previously thought, settling on England’s east coast more than 800,000 years ago.

2011: Thousands of fans from around the world mass in London for the premiere of the final film in the magical adventure series of the boy wizard Harry Potter.

Today’s Birthdays

Gustav Mahler, Austrian composer (1860-1911); Marc Chagall, Russian artist (1887-1985); Vittorio de Sica, Italian director (1901-1974); Margaret Walker, U.S. writer (1915-1998); Pierre Cardin, French fashion designer (1922-); Shelley Duvall, US actress (1949-); Ringo Starr, British musician (1940-).

—AP