Today is the 311th day of 2012. There are 55 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight

1999: Australians, refusing to shake their colonial past, reject a referendum to make their nation the world’s 147th republic and drop Britain’s queen as their head of state.

Other Events

1860: Abraham Lincoln is elected president of the United States.

1913: Mohandas K Gandhi is arrested as he leads a protest march of Indian miners in South Africa.

1955: South Africa quits the UN General Assembly and its committees for the rest of the 10th session after the Assembly adopts a resolution expressing “concern” over South Africa’s apartheid policy.

1962: UN General Assembly calls for economic sanctions against South Africa because of its racial policies.

1970: Italy formally recognises China.

1976: Guerrilla warfare in Rhodesia (what later became Zimbabwe) is endorsed by leaders of neighbouring black countries at a meeting in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania.

1984: US Republican President Ronald Reagan wins re-election to a second term by a landslide over Democrat Walter F Mondale.

1991: The last of more than 700 Kuwaiti oil wells set on fire by Iraqi forces during the Persian Gulf war are doused, as firefighting teams complete in eight months a job oil officials estimated would take more than two years.

1993: Georgian troops seize Zugdidi, last stronghold of rebels loyal to ousted president Zviad Gamsakhurdia.

1994: Rescuers struggle to reach villages and families trapped under the rubble of collapsed houses amid the devastation caused by heavy flooding across southern Europe.

1996: About 1,000 people are killed when a cyclone hits Andhra Pradesh state in southern India. It is the deadliest cyclone in India since 1977, when more than 10,000 people were killed, also in Andhra Pradesh.

1997: Severe flooding kills 31 people in western Spain and eastern Portugal.

1998: Paul Kagame, Rwanda’s vice president and minister of defense, admits Rwandan troops were aiding a rebellion in neighbouring Congo aimed at ousting that country’s leader, President Laurent Kabila.

2000: Surgeons in London begin to separate conjoined twin girls in a long and complex operation that ends up killing one baby to give her sister a chance for a longer life.

2001: Germany’s Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder pledges up to 3,900 German troops for the US war on terrorism, pushing the nation toward its most far-reaching military participation since World War II.

2002: The UN children’s agency (UNICEF) says one woman dies every 20 minutes in Afghanistan because of complications during pregnancy or childbirth — a maternal mortality rate that ranks among the highest in the world.

2005: Grenade-tossing attackers in Somalia’s capital set upon the prime minister, a day after two boatloads of the increasingly bold pirates plying its seas tried to seize a cruise ship carrying Western tourists.

2007: Astronomers say a new planet has been discovered orbiting a sun-like star 41 light years away, making it the first known planetary quintet outside our solar system.

2008: Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuck becomes Bhutan’s first king since its transformation to democracy.

2011: Greece’s embattled prime minister and main opposition leader agree to form an interim government to ensure the country’s new European debt deal, capping a week of political turmoil that saw Greece face a catastrophic default that threatened its euro membership and roiled international markets.

Today’s Birthdays

John Philip Sousa, US composer (1854-1937); James Jones, US novelist (1921-1977); Mike Nichols, US theatrical director-producer (1931-); Sally Field, US actress (1946-); Maria Shriver, US journalist and former first lady in California (1955-); Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, US supermodel/actress (1972-).

— AP