Today is the 52nd day of 2014. There are 313 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1965: Former Black Muslim leader Malcolm X is shot and killed by assassins identified as black Muslims as he was about to address a rally in New York City.

OTHER EVENTS

1613: Michael Romanov, son of the patriarch of Moscow, is elected czar of Russia, thus founding the House of Romanov.

1795: Dutch surrender Ceylon — now Sri Lanka — to British; freedom of worship is established in France.

1838: American Samuel Morse gives the first public demonstration of the telegraph in New York.

1866: Lucy B Hobbs becomes the first American woman to graduate from dental school, the Ohio College of Dental Surgery in Cincinnati.

1878: First US telephone directory is issued, by the District Telephone Co of New Haven, Connecticut.

1885: US President Chester A Arthur dedicates the Washington Monument.

1916: Battle of Verdun in France begins with a massive German artillery bombardment. It is the longest and bloodiest battle of World War I, with more than one million killed.

1925: The New Yorker magazine makes its debut.

1963: Soviet Union warns United States that an American attack on Cuba would mean world war.

1972: US President Richard M Nixon arrives in Beijing for a weeklong visit that paves the road for normalized US-China relations.

1975: A 32-member UN Commission on Human Rights, in Geneva, accuses Israel of violating “basic norms of international law” in Arab territories it occupies.

1986: South African Government opens “whites only” downtown districts of Johannesburg and Durban to all races in the first break with apartheid policy of segregated business areas.

1992: For the first time since the Communist revolution of 1949, China welcomes foreigners back to its Shanghai stock market.

1995: The United States and Mexico agree on the terms of a $20-billion rescue package for Mexico.

1996: In Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, police fire into a carnival crowd after a man pulls out a gun near a float. Two people are killed and more than 50 injured.

1997: Belgrade’s first non-Communist government in a half-century takes office and elects opposition leader Zoran Djindjic as mayor of the Yugoslav capital.

1999: The party of Gen Olusegun Obasanjo narrowly wins in Nigeria’s legislative elections, giving him the edge in an upcoming presidential election and signalling a return to democracy.

2000: In a clear endorsement of moderate President Mohammed Khatami, voters reject Iran’s hard-liners, giving reformists the largest number of seats in parliament.

2001: More than 1,000 people watch as two women convicted of prostitution are hanged in Kandahar , the headquarters of the Taliban in Afghanistan. The women, also convicted of “corrupting society,” are executed in the sports stadium.

2002: US and Pakistani officials confirm that Daniel Pearl, correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, kidnapped a month earlier in Karachi, has been killed by his captors.

2007: Leaders in Britain and Denmark announce plans for a withdrawal of troops from Iraq.

2008: Nearly 200,000 people demonstrate in downtown Belgrade, Serbia, against Kosovo independence, storming the US Embassy and setting fire to offices and police guardhouses. Firefighters find a charred body inside the embassy, and more than 150 are injured.

2010: Israel’s air force introduces a fleet of huge pilotless planes that can remain in the air for a full day and fly as far as the Gulf, putting rival Iran within its range.

2011: Negotiators for the Philippines government and communist rebels agree in Norway on a road map for continued peace talks aimed at resolving one of Asia’s longest-running conflicts by June 2012.

2012: Greece gets a second massive financial bailout when its eurozone partners stich together a euro130 billion ($170 billion) rescue meant to avoid a potentially disastrous default and secure the euro currency.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

John Henry Newman, English cardinal (1801-1890); Leo Delibes, French composer (1836-1891); W H Auden, English poet (1907-1973); Robert Mugabe, president of Zimbabwe (1924-); Kelsey Grammer, US actor (1955-); Mary Chapin Carpenter, US country singer (1958-); Jack Coleman, US actor (1958-); Christopher Atkins, US actor (1961-); Jennifer Love Hewitt, US actress/singer (1979-); Ellen Page, US actress (1987-).

— AP