Today is the 353rd day of 2013. There are 12 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1998: As US forces bomb Iraq, the US House of Representatives impeaches President Bill Clinton for obstructing justice and lying under oath about his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

OTHER EVENTS

1547: Great Britain passes a vagabond law.

1793: A young Napoleon Bonaparte takes Toulon, France, from the British and Spanish in his first major military victory.

1795: Austria signs armistice with France.

1842: The United States recognises independence of Hawaii.

1843: Charles Dickens’ classic Yuletide tale, A Christmas Carol, is first published in England.

1907: A coal mine explosion in Jacobs Creek, Pennsylvania, kills 239 workers.

1909: A civil war starts in Honduras.

1932: The British Broadcasting Corp begins transmitting overseas with its “Empire Service” to Australia.

1951: The New Treaty of Friendship is signed between Oman and Britain, recognising full independence of the sultanate.

1955: Sudan’s Parliament declares independence.

1966: UN General Assembly endorses a draft treaty banning the use of weapons of mass destruction in space.

1972: Apollo 17 spacecraft splashes down on target in Pacific Ocean, ending US Apollo programme of landing men on Moon.

1978: Indian Parliament ousts former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi from her newly elected seat and orders her jailed for contempt and breach of privilege.

1984: Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher of Britain and Zhao Ziyang of China sign a joint declaration spelling out the terms for Hong Kong’s return to Chinese sovereignty on July 1, 1997.

1999: Survivors wander through streets covered with rocks and mud as the death toll from massive mudslides and flooding in Venezuela surpasses 5,000.

2001:Jobless Argentines unleash their anger over a deep economic tailspin in a burst of looting and violence that targets supermarkets and shops on the fringes of Buenos Aires.

2002: US Secretary of State Colin Powell says Iraq is in “material breach” of UN Security Council resolutions for alleged omissions in a declaration of its weapons programmes.

2003: Libya agrees to abandon its programmes pursuing internationally banned weapons, including chemical, biological and nuclear weapons as well as long-range missiles. It agrees to respect the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

2005: Uganda’s main opposition leader pleads not guilty to treason charges in a trial supporters claim is being staged to keep him out of 2006 presidential elections.

2006: A Libyan court convicts five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor and condemns them to death for infecting 400 children with HIV. Nearly seven months later, they are allowed to return to Bulgaria.

2007: Former Hyundai CEO Lee Myung-bak claims victory in South Korea’s presidential election, as voters overlook fraud allegations in hopes he will revive the economy.

2008: The Pentagon formally approves war crimes charges against Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a Guantanamo detainee accused of masterminding the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole off Yemen.

2010: Police in Denmark and Sweden say they thwarted a terrorist attack possibly hours before it was to begin, arresting five men they say planned to shoot as many people as possible in a Copenhagen building housing the newsroom of a paper that published cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad.

2011: North Koreans march by the thousands to their capital’s landmarks to mourn Kim Jong Il, many crying uncontrollably in grief over the death of their “Dear Leader”.

2012: French President Francois Hollande announces a new era with Algeria — a strategic partnership among equals — during a visit to the North African nation that was once a prized colony in the French empire.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Su Tung-p’o, Chinese poet (1036-1101); Leonid I Brezhnev, Soviet Communist Party chief (1906-1982); Robert Urich, US actor (1946-2002); Jennifer Beals, US actress (1963-); Jake Gyllenhaal, US actor (1980-)

–AP

clinton lewinsky.jpg

This official White House photo was taken on November 17, 1995, two days after the day when Monica Lewinsky said her sexual relationship with President Bill Clinton began.