TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1922: Fourteen republics merge to form the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

OTHER EVENTS

1192: Richard I the Lion-heart, king of England, is captured in Vienna.

1582: The Gregorian calendar is adopted in France.

1790: The first successful cotton mill in the United States begins operating in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.

1803: New Orleans flies the American flag for the first time, signalling a transfer of ownership as the Louisiana Territory is handed over to the United States, which purchased it from France.

1830: The London conference of Britain, France, Austria, Prussia and Russia agrees with Belgium on separation from Holland.

1852: British forces annex Pegu, lower Burma, in war with Burmese.

1860: South Carolina becomes the first US state to secede from the Union.

1879: Inventor Thomas Edison privately demonstrates his incandescent light in Menlo Park, New Jersey.

1880: Electric lights are installed throughout Broadway’s theatre section.

1944: The Cuban Government agrees with importers to establish a flour subsidy to end shortages that have left Havana without bread.

1957: European Nuclear Energy Agency is founded; Elvis Presley receives army draft notice.

1963: The Berlin Wall opens for the first time to West Berliners, who are allowed one-day visits to relatives in the Eastern sector for the holidays.

1973: Spain’s Premier Luis Carrero Blanco is killed when assassins bomb his car in Madrid.

1986: Up to 30,000 students march for democracy through streets of Shanghai in China’s largest demonstration since the Cultural Revolution.

1987: More than 3,000 people are killed when the Dona Paz, a Philippine passenger ship, collides with the tanker Vector off Mindoro island, setting off a double explosion.

1989: Some 12,000 U.S. troops arrive in Panama to overthrow the government of General Manuel Antonio Noriega.

1990: Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze resigns suddenly, warning parliament that hard-liners are pushing the country toward dictatorship.

1991: South Africa’s government, the African National Congress and other parties begin talks on rewriting the country’s Constitution.

1992: Welcomed by thousands of cheering Somalis, US Marines and Belgian paratroopers pour ashore in broad daylight and quickly take control of Kismayu’s port and airport.

1994: Mexico lowers the peso’s trading floor, triggering a drastic devaluation.

1997: Two days after winning the presidential election in South Korea, President Kim Dae-jung pardons former Presidents Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo, two ex-military dictators who tried to kill him when he was a dissident.

1998: Nkem Chukwu of Houston, Texas, becomes the first woman to give birth to eight live babies.

1999: The Vermont Supreme Court rules that gay couples must be granted the same benefits and protections given married couples of the opposite sex in the first ruling of its kind in the United States.

2001: Argentine President Fernando de la Rua resigns amid riots sparked by the country’s collapsing economy.

2003: Political opponents of President Hugo Chavez submit to the National Electoral Council petitions with 3.4 million signatures seeking a referendum to recall Chavez.

2004: A tribunal upholds President Olusegun Obasanjo’s victory in Nigeria’s first-ever civilian-run vote, held more than a year earlier, saying some balloting fraud had occurred but that the graft wouldn’t have changed the results.

2005: The first full session of Afghanistan’s new parliament almost breaks down in an uproar after a woman lawmaker demands that all warlords — some of whom are lawmakers — be brought to justice.

2006: Journalist Gao Qinrong, serving a 13-year jail term in China for reporting about a bogus irrigation project, is released five years early, a decision touted as evidence of the country’s willingness to empower the media.

2007: Russia signs an agreement with Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to build a huge natural gas pipeline along the Caspian Sea.

2009: China, the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, lauds the outcome of a historic UN climate conference that ended with a non-binding agreement that urges major polluters to make deeper emissions cuts — but does not require it.

2010: North Korea backs off threats to retaliate against South Korea for military drills and reportedly offers concessions on its nuclear programme — signs it is looking to lower the temperature on the Korean peninsula after weeks of soaring tensions.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Leopold von Ranke, German historian (1795-1886); Branch Rickey, US baseball executive (1881-1965); Sir Robert Gordon Menzies, Australian statesman (1894-1978); W Eugene Smith, US photojournalist (1918-1978); George Roy Hill, US film director (1922-2002); Kim Young-sam, former president of South Korea (1927-)

— AP