Today is the 331st day of 2013. There are 34 days left in the year.

TODAY HIGHLIGHT

2009: Star golfer Tiger Woods is slightly injured in an early morning car accident outside his mansion, the start of one of the swiftest descents ever in public esteem for a major celebrity after reports emerge of serial marital infidelity and lead to a divorce from his Swedish wife Elin Nordegren.

OTHER EVENTS

602: Roman Emperor Maurice and his sons are beheaded at Chalcedon in Asia Minor.

1582: William Shakespeare marries Anne Hathaway.

1942: The French navy at Toulon scuttles its ships and submarines to keep them out of the hands of the Nazis.

1961: Soviet Union proposes immediate ban on nuclear testing without international controls.

1962: Britain agrees to provide arms to India to resist Chinese aggression.

1973: The US Senate votes 92-3 to confirm Gerald R Ford as vice-president, succeeding Spiro T Agnew, who resigned.

1983: A huge rally called by all Uruguayan political parties demands the end of the dictatorship and return to civilian democratic rule.

1985: The British House of Commons approves the Anglo-Irish accord, giving Dublin a consultative role in the governing of British-ruled Northern Ireland.

1990: John Major is elected prime minister of Britain.

1993: After weeks of denial, the British government admits contacts with the Irish Republican Army.

1997: Albanian separatists attack a police station in the Yugoslav province of Kosovo. A policeman and a rebel die in the gunbattle.

1998: Sensing growing popular pressure to get troops out of Lebanon, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promises a thorough review of Israel’s policy.

1999: Northern Ireland’s biggest party clears the way for the formation of an unprecedented Protestant-Catholic administration, the long-elusive goal of the 1998 Good Friday peace accord.

2000: The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (Tamil Tigers) rebels prepare to hold unconditional peace negotiations with the government to end Sri Lanka’s 17-year-long civil war.

2002: Prominent Pakistani doctor Dr. Amer Azia, who admitted to treating Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders before and after the September 11, 2001 attacks, says that the terrorist mastermind is in excellent health and shows no signs of kidney failure.

2003: President George W Bush pays an unannounced visit to US troops in Baghdad on the US holiday of Thanksgiving.

2004: Chechnya’s president firmly rules out any negotiations with top rebel leaders, saying there is “nothing to talk about” with former separatist President Aslan Maskhadov and warlord Shamil Basayev.

2005: Chechens vote in their first parliamentary elections since Russia sent troops back to the Caucasus region six years before to crush a separatist insurgency.

2006: Two rivers in Somalia swell, flooding hundreds of villages and sending thousands fleeing to high ground as international agencies struggle to deliver aid.

2007: The Dalai Lama announces that the Tibetan people will hold a referendum before he dies to decide whether a new system of leadership would better serve the struggle for self-determination.

2008: Somali pirates release the Greek-owned cargo ship Centauri and its 25 crew members seized more than two months ago.

2010: The United States and South Korea prepare for war games as South Koreans demand vengeance over a deadly North Korean artillery bombardment that has raised fears of more clashes between the bitter rivals.

2011: In an unprecedented move against an Arab nation, the Arab League approves economic sanctions on Syria to pressure Damascus to end its deadly suppression of an 8-month-old uprising against President Bashar Assad.

2012: France announces that it plans to vote in favoUr of recogniSing a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly, becoming the first major European country to come out in favoUr and dealing a setback to Israel.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY

Anders Celsius, Swedish astronomer and inventor of Celsius scale (1701-1744); Bruce Lee, Chinese-American actor (1940-1973); Jimi Hendrix, American rock guitarist (1942-1970); Michael Vartan, French actor (1968-)

— AP