TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1993: Operating from its Fagan Avenue, Kingston 8 headquarters, the Jamaica Observer begins publication as a weekly newspaper.

OTHER EVENTS

1854: A sewing machine that can stitch buttonholes is patented by Charles Miller of St Louis.

1876: Alexander Graham Bell receives a patent for his telephone.

1926: The first successful trans-Atlantic radio-telephone conversation takes place, between New York City and London.

1935: Restoration of Saar to Germany marks beginning of German expansion.

1947: Terrorist attack on police headquarters in Asuncion, Paraguay, sparks bloody five-month civil war.

1989: China declares martial law in Tibetan capital of Lhasa following three days of anti-Chinese rioting.

1990: Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev demands billions of dollars in hard currency to cover Soviet investments if Lithuania secedes from Soviet Union.

1992: Russian President Boris Yeltsin ends price controls on bread and other staples, leading to steep price increases.

2001: Ariel Sharon takes over as Israel’s prime minister.

2005: A fire set by rioting gang members kills 134 inmates of a provincial jail in the Dominican Republic, where overcrowded cells are overrun with rats, cockroaches and bedbugs.

2008: The Russian-backed region of Abkhazia appeals to the world community to recognise it as independent from Georgia, citing Kosovo as a precedent.

2009: The Western-backed Palestinian prime minister resigns, improving odds of a possible unity government of Fatah moderates and Hamas militants.

2010: Iraqis defy insurgents who lob hand grenades at voters and bomb a polling station in an attempt to intimidate those taking part in elections that will determine whether their country can overcome deep sectarian divides as US forces prepare to leave.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Willard Scott, US weatherman for the Today show, (1934-); Michael Eisner, US chairman, Walt Disney Co (1942-); Rachel Weisz, British actress (1971-).

— AP/Jamaica Observer