TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

2002: The Mars Odyssey finds signs of large ice deposits on the planet Mars.

OTHER EVENTS

1863: The first black regiment from the North leaves Boston to fight in the American Civil War.

1864: Austria-Hungary’s Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian lands in Veracruz, Mexico, to become Emperor.

1919: Armenia declares its independence, breaking up the short-lived Trans-caucasian Federal Republic. Armenia joins the Soviet Union in 1922.

1923: The US Attorney General determines it is legal for women to wear trousers.

1937: US President Franklin Roosevelt pushes a button in Washington signalling that vehicular traffic could cross the just-opened Golden Gate Bridge in California.

1961: Paris-Bucharest Orient Express train makes final trip after 78 years; human rights organisation Amnesty International is founded.

1971: Soviet Union launches spacecraft toward planet Mars, containing the first capsules to land on the planet.

1976: US and Soviet Union sign treaty limiting size of underground nuclear explosions set off for peaceful purposes.

1979: Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat announces opening of air corridors between Egypt

and Israel.

1984: US President Ronald Reagan leads a state funeral at Arlington National Cemetery for an unidentified American soldier killed in the Vietnam War.

1987: Mathias Rust, a 19-year-old West German pilot, lands a private plane in Moscow’s Red Square after evading Soviet

air defences.

1988: Yugoslav Government introduces new austerity programme that includes devaluation of dinar and massive price increases.

1989: Muslim rebels renew offensive against Afghan city of Jalalabad.

1990: Lech Walesa persuades rail workers to suspend a strike that had crippled train service in northern Poland.

1992: To raise pressure on Haiti, the US announces it will close the refugee camp at the naval base in Guantanamo, Cuba, and bar ships that trade with Haiti from US ports.

1993: Bosnian Serbs subject Sarajevo to heavy shelling and sniper fire despite a new accord on demilitarising the city.

1994: UN troops step up evacuations of trapped civilians in Kigali, capital of Rwanda, and appeal for protection for convoys moving people across battle lines.

1995: At least 1,500 people die in an earthquake that destroys a coastal village on Sakhalin Island in Russia’s Far East.

1997: Uzbek troops turn on their Taliban allies and take the city of Mazar-i-Sharif in northern Afghanistan after fierce fighting, marking a major setback for the Islamist Taliban movement.

1998: Pakistan says it has matched India’s recent nuclear test with the detonation of five devices, then declares a state of emergency citing unspecified threats of “external aggression”.

2000: Sierra Leonean rebels free what appear to be the last of some 500 UN hostages held for nearly a month.

2002: The Libyan Government offers to pay US$2.7 billion to the families of 270 victims of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in exchange for an end to US and UN sanctions against Libya.

2005: Major increases in the price of staple foods go into effect as President Robert Mugabe, who had recently refused assistance claiming the country had a bumper harvest, admits that Zimbabwe needs food aid to

avert famine.

2007: The US and Iran break a 27-year diplomatic freeze with a four-hour meeting in Baghdad about Iraqi security.

2008: Lawmakers declare Nepal the world’s newest republic and bring to an end a centuries-old Hindu monarchy, giving the king two weeks to leave the

royal compound.

2009: Time Warner, one of the world’s biggest media companies, says it will spin out AOL as a separate company and get on with its life as a movie, television and publishing conglomerate.

2010: Islamist gunmen and a suicide squad lob grenades, spray bullets from atop a minaret and take hostages in attacks on two mosques packed with worshippers from a minority sect in Pakistan. At least 80 people are killed and dozens wounded.

2011: Egypt lifts a four-year-old blockade of the Gaza Strip, greatly easing travel restrictions on the 1.5 million residents of the Palestinian territory in a move that bolsters the Hamas government while dealing a setback to Israel’s attempts to isolate the

militant group.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

William Pitt, English statesman (1759-1806); Edouard Benes, Czechoslovak statesman (1884-1948); Ian Fleming, British writer (1908-1964); Patrick White, Australian author (1912-1990); Carroll Baker, US actress (1931-); Gladys Knight, US singer (1944-); Jeff Fenech, Australian boxer (1964-); Kylie Minogue, Australian singer (1968-).