TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

2000: Scientists announce that the human genetic code has essentially been deciphered, a monumental achievement that opens a dramatic new frontier in medicine.

OTHER EVENTS

1549: The 17 provinces of the Netherlands are declared independent of the Holy Roman Empire.

1714: Spain and Holland sign Peace of Utrecht.

1858: Treaty of Tientsin ends war between Britain and China, whereby China opens additional ports to British commerce and legalises opium trade.

1945: Charter establishing the UN is signed in San Francisco, California, by 50 nations.

1960: Madagascar proclaims its independence as the Malagasy Republic; British Somaliland becomes independent.

1964: The Roman Catholic Church and Spain’s government say they have reached basic agreement on proposed legislation to grant legal recognition and certain rights to Spain’s Protestants.

1989: Hungary’s new Communist Party chief says his country is ‘breaking away from Stalinism’.

1990: Nelson Mandela speaks before the US Congress, thanking it for imposing sanctions against South Africa and asking that sanctions be maintained until ‘irreversible’ reforms are enacted.

1996: Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd offers a $2.7-million reward for those responsible for a truck bomb that killed at least 19 Americans and wounded hundreds.

1999: Nobel Peace Prize winner Jose Ramos Horta returns to East Timor, his place of birth, following 24 years in self-exile during which the country was occupied by Indonesia.

2001: Seven North Koreans take refuge in a UN office in Beijing and request asylum, highlighting the plight of North Korean famine victims whom China refuse to regard as refugees.

2003: The US Supreme Court rules, 6-3, that a Texas law banning sodomy between consenting same-sex adults is unconstitutional.

2004: The US and the EU agree in a joint statement to back Iraq’s request for NATO military assistance to support the training of Iraqi security forces, and to reduce Iraq’s international debt.

2007: Pope Benedict XVI changes the rules for electing popes, requiring that two-thirds of the cardinals in a conclave agree on the new pontiff. The move was a return to Vatican tradition and reversed a 1996 decision by Pope John Paul II.

2008: South Korea lifts its ban on US beef imports, and President Lee Myung-bak urges the country to move past the dispute that has paralysed his government with weeks of tumultuous protests.

2009: Honduras’ leftist President Manuel Zelaya pushes ahead with a referendum on revamping the constitution, risking his rule in a stand-off against Congress, the Supreme Court and the military.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

George Morland, English artist (1763-1804); Bartolome Mitre, Argentine president (1821-1906); Baron William Homson Kelvin, English physicist (1824-1907); Pearl Buck, US author (1892-1973); Peter Lorre, Hungarian actor (1904-1964); Chris Isaak, US singer (1956-); Chris O’Donnell, actor (1970-); Patty Smyth, singer (1957-); Sean Hayes, US actor (1970-).

— AP