Today is the 328th day of 2012. There are 38 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight

2005: Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf is confirmed as the winner in Liberia’s first postwar elections. The new president says her victory marks a new beginning for her country and for African women.

Other Events

1531: Peace of Kappel ends second civil war in Switzerland.

1848: The Female Medical Educational Society is established in Boston, Massachusetts the same year the all-male American Medical Association is formed.

1890: Grand Duchy of Luxembourg is separated from the Netherlands.

1891: Deodoroda Fonseca, first president of Brazil, is ousted by a navy revolt.

1943: US forces defeat Japanese in Pacific battle of Tarawa in World War II.

1945: Most US wartime rationing of foods, including meat and butter, ends.

1971: China takes seat as a permanent member of UN Security Council.

1986: Philippine President Corazon Aquino dismisses defence chief Juan Ponce Enrile after reported coup attempt.

1989: At least 300,000 people jam Prague’s Wenceslas Square to demand democratic reforms in Czechoslovakia.

1990: Iraq ends curfew in occupied Kuwait, but begins calling up army reservists in their thirties.

1997: Somali villagers isolated for weeks by flooding finally receive aid from boats travelling down the Juba river.

1998: The EU lifts a worldwide export ban on British beef. The ban was imposed after experts announced a possible link between “mad cow” disease and a fatal disease in humans.

1999: Kuwait’s Parliament rejects a decree giving women the right to vote and run for office.

2000: The US presidential election stretches into the Thanksgiving Day holiday without a president-elect as the fierce tug of war between George W Bush and Al Gore over Florida’s crucial electoral votes reaches the US Supreme Court.

2003: Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze resigns in the face of massive, almost daily protests that followed the flawed November 2 parliamentary elections.

2006: In London, a rare radioactive substance is used to kill ex-KGB spy turned Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko, who called Russian President Vladimir Putin “barbaric and ruthless” and blamed him personally for the poisoning.

2007: Lebanon’s political tumult intensifies as President Emile Lahoud leaves office at the end of his term without a successor and hands security powers to the army. The rival, pro-Western Cabinet rejects the declaration.

2008: President Hugo Chavez’s allies win a majority in Venezuela’s state and municipal elections, but the opposition makes important gains.

2009: The world’s largest atom smasher makes another leap forward by circulating beams of protons in opposite directions at the same time and causing the first particle collisions in the $10 billion machine after more than a year of repairs.

2010: In a seismic shift on one of the most profound — and profoundly contentious — Roman Catholic teachings, the Vatican says that condoms are the lesser of two evils when used to curb the spread of AIDS, even if their use prevents a pregnancy.

2011: Yemen’s autocratic leader Ali Abdullah Saleh agrees to step down after months of demonstrations against his 33-year rule, pleasing the US and its Gulf allies.

Today’s Birthdays

Thomas Birch, English historian (1705-1766); Boris Karloff, British-born actor (1887-1969); Paul Celan, Romanian poet (1920-1970); Vo Van Kiet, former Vietnamese Prime Minister (1922-2008); Krzysztof Penderecki, Polish composer (1933-); Bruce Hornsby, US singer (1954-); Oded Fehr, Israeli actor (1970-).

— AP