Today is the 86th day of 2014. There are 279 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1968: Yuri Gagarin, Soviet cosmonaut who flew the world’s first manned space mission, is killed in a training plane crash

OTHER EVENTS

1794: US President George Washington and Congress authorise creation of the US Navy.

1865: Independent British colony of Kaffaria is incorporated with Cape Colony in South Africa.

1899: Italian Guglielmo Marconi sends the first radio signals across the English Channel.

1968: Suharto, an army general, is elected Indonesia’s second president, replacing Sukarno, who lost power in March 1966.

1995: South African President Nelson Mandela fires his estranged wife, Winnie, from the government.

1998: US Food and Drug Administration approves the drug Viagra, made by Pfizer, saying it helped about two-thirds of impotent men improve their sexual function.

2006: The UN Human Rights Commission holds its last meeting before being replaced by a new body, ending a 60-year history in which some of the world’s worst offenders often used their membership to protect one another from condemnation.

2010: Europe’s best known landmarks — including the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben and Rome’s Colosseum — fall dark, following Sydney’s Opera House and Beijing’s Forbidden City in joining a global climate change protest, as lights are switched off across the world to mark the Earth Hour event.

2011: International air raids target Moammar Gadhafi’s hometown of Sirte for the first time as rebels quickly close in on the regime stronghold.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

William von Roentgen, German physicist (1845-1923); Frederick Henry Royce, English auto engineer (1863-1933); Gloria Swanson, US film actress (1898-1983); Michael York, English actor (1942-);

Quentin Tarantino, US film director (1963-); Mariah Carey, US popsinger (1970-)

— AP