Today is the 62nd day of 2014. There are 303 days left in the year.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

1991: In a case that sparked a national outcry, motorist Rodney King is severely beaten by Los Angeles police officers in a scene captured on amateur video.

OTHER EVENTS

1707: Mogul Emperor Aurangjeb dies in India and is succeeded by Bahadur.

1813: Britain signs Treaty of Stockholm with Sweden, which agrees to supply army in return for British subsidies and a promise not to oppose union with Norway.

1861: Emancipation of Russian serfs is proclaimed.

1875: The Georges Bizet opera Carmen premieres in Paris.

1878: Bulgaria is liberated from five centuries of Ottoman Turkish rule.

1896: Peace of Bucharest between Serbia and Bulgaria is signed.

1918: Russian Bolsheviks sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, surrendering a quarter of the country to Germany while receiving crucial support in return.

1931: The United States officially adopts the Star-Spangled Banner as the country’s national anthem.

1932: Chinese forces are driven back from Shanghai by Japanese.

1941: Bulgaria signs the Tripartite Pact and allows German troops to cross its territory. Although Bulgaria becomes an ally of Nazi Germany, Bulgarians oppose deportation of Jews and save them from Nazi death camps.

1974: Turkish Airlines DC-10 crashes shortly after take-off from Orly Airport in Paris, killing nearly 350 people.

1976: US Government under President Gerald Ford discloses that it has decided to sell weapons to Egypt.

1986: Protestant militants go on car-burning rampage in central Belfast, Northern Ireland, in protest against Anglo-Irish accord.

1988: Political clashes leave 11 people dead and more than 300 injured in Bangladesh as accusations of vote fraud mar parliamentary elections.

1992: Police say they recover the bodies of 120 Azerbaijanis killed as they fled an Armenian assault in the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan.

1995: The former president of Mexico, Carlos Salinas de Gortari, goes on a hunger strike to force the Government to take back what he describes as slander against him. He suspends the strike a few hours later.

1996: A bomb explodes aboard a bus in the heart of Jerusalem, killing 19 people, including the bomber.

1997: A passenger train derails in Pakistan’s Punjab province, killing at least 125 people and injuring more than 450.

1998: A nationwide strike shuts down most of Zimbabwe’s economy, and the government threatens to punish those who encouraged the protest.

1999: An estimated 74 million US viewers watch former White House intern Monica Lewinsky confess the details of her affair with US President Bill Clinton.

2000: Former dictator General Augusto Pinochet returns to Chile a free man, 16 months after he was detained in Britain on torture charges.

2002: In a break with the country’s long-standing tradition of isolationism and neutrality in world affairs, Swiss citizens vote in favoUr of becoming the 190th member of the United Nations.

2004: Angered by way President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was forced to flee his country, the 15-nation Caribbean Community says it will not provide troops for the UN peacekeeping force to Haiti. Aristide claimed that he was abducted at gunpoint by US Marines and sent into exile in South Africa.

2005: – France tries one of its biggest and most horrific paedophilia cases, where children and babies were allegedly prostituted for food and money, raped and abused — sometimes by people in masks who are still thought to be at large.

2006: Anti-US protests erupt in several Pakistani cities, with crowds burning American flags and chanting “Death to Bush” hours before the US president arrives.

2007: Pakistan successfully test-fires a short-range missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead two weeks ahead of peace talks with archrival neighbouring India.

2008: An 11-year-old girl revered as a living goddess in Nepal retires early less than a year after she sparked controversy by breaking tradition and traveling overseas. Sajani Shakya was considered among the top three of Nepal’s several “kumaris,” or living goddesses.

2009: The Vatican seeks to show that it is not opposed to science and evolutionary theory, hosting a conference on Charles Darwin and trying to debunk idea it embraces creationism or intelligent design.

2011: Egypt’s military rulers appoint the first post-Hosni Mubarak prime minister, replacing an air force pilot close to the ousted leader in a bid to appease thousands of protesters who had threatened to renew the occupation of a central Cairo square.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Thomas Otway, English dramatist (1652-1685); Alexander Graham Bell, Scottish-American inventor of telephone (1847-1922); Jean Harlow, US actress (1911-1937); Jennifer Warnes, US singer (1947–); Miranda Richardson, British actress (1958–); Tone-Loc, US rapper/actor (1966-); Jessica Biel, US actress (1982-)

— AP