Today is the 69th day of 2014. There are 296 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1998: General Augusto Pinochet, the 82-year-old former dictator of Chile, steps down from his position as army commander and is sworn in as senator for life under a provision written into the constitution by his regime.

OTHER EVENTS

1496: Christopher Columbus concludes his second visit to the Western Hemisphere as he leaves Hispaniola for Spain.

1629: England’s King Charles I dissolves Parliament and doesn’t call it back for 11 years.

1785: Thomas Jefferson is named US minister to France, succeeding Benjamin Franklin.

1848: US Senate ratifies the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, ending the war with Mexico.

1862: Britain and France recognise independence of Zanzibar; the US Government issues its first paper money.

1876: The first successful voice transmission over Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone takes place in Boston as his assistant hears Bell say, “Mr Watson, come here. I want you.”

1893: French colonies of French Guinea and Ivory Coast are formally established.

1946: Italian women vote for the first time.

1949: Nazi wartime broadcaster Mildred E Gillars, also known as ‘Axis Sally’, is convicted in Washington, DC, of treason. She served 12 years in prison.

1959: The Dalai Lama leads a rebellion against Chinese rule. The revolt fails and the Dalai Lama flees to India.

1969: James Earl Ray pleads guilty in Memphis, Tennessee, to the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr, but later repudiates his plea.

1985: Konstantin U Chernenko, who was the Soviet Union’s leader for just 13 months, dies at age 73.

1989: About 100,000 workers move into Iraq’s war-battered southern port of Basra to hasten reconstruction of what once was called the “Venice of the East”.

1991: A half-million people rally in Moscow in support of Russian President Boris Yeltsin.

1994: The leader of the South African apartheid homeland Bophutatswana retreats from his capital in the face of a popular uprising after he tries to boycott participation in South Africa’s first all-races election.

1997: Despite US reservations, the Vatican establishes diplomatic relations with Libya.

2001: The Nuu-chah-nulth, the largest native tribal group in British Columbia, agree to a treaty with the provincial and federal governments; giving the natives a measure of autonomy, a share in the land’s resources and a large one-time payment.

2002: Candidates allied with independent and far-right Colombian presidential contender, Alvaro Uribe, post gains in congressional elections amid mounting violence between leftist rebel groups and government forces.

2005: After years of denials, Pakistan admits its top nuclear scientist sold centrifuges to Iran, though it sticks by its claim it knew nothing of his activities and insists he will not be turned over to another country for prosecution.

2006: Six young Japanese are found dead from asphyxiation in a car northwest of Tokyo — victims of a surge in suicide pacts arranged over the Internet.

2008: Hundreds of Tibetan exiles begin a six-month march from India to Tibet to protest Beijing’s hold on the Himalayan region and China’s hosting of the Summer Olympic Games.

2009: A gunman, 28-year-old Michael McLendon, kills 10 people, including his mother, four other relatives and the wife and child of a local sheriff’s deputy across two rural Alabama counties before committing suicide.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Friedrich Schlegel, German poet (1772-1829); Pablo Sarasate

(Martin Meliton), Spanish violinist (1844-1908); Prince Edward,

fourth child of England’s Queen Elizabeth II (1964-); David Rabe,

US playwright (1940-); Chuck Norris, US actor (1940-); Sharon

Stone, US actress (1958-); Edie Brickell, US singer (1966-);

Timbaland, US rapper/producer (1972-).

– AP