Today is the 217th day of 2013. There are 148 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1992: Nelson Mandela leads 100,000 blacks in Pretoria in a protest to end white rule.

OTHER EVENTS

1716: Savoy’s Prince Eugene defeats Turks at Peterwardein, now part of Serbia.

1772: In St Petersburg, rulers of Russia, Prussia and Austria sign the first of three partitions ending Poland’s sovereign rule until 1918.

1861: The US federal government levies an income tax for the first time.

1884: Cornerstone of Statue of Liberty is laid at entrance to New York harbour.

1944: More than 1,000 Japanese, taken as prisoners of war by Australia, unsuccessfully attempt to escape from a camp in Cowra, New South Wales; 234 are killed and 108 wounded.

1949: US aid to Nationalist China ceases; Earthquake in Ecuador takes about 6,000 lives.

1954: Iran and eight Western oil companies agree to reactivate Iran’s frozen oil industry, ending a three-year battle that bankrupted Iran.

1962: Anti-apartheid fighter Nelson Mandela is arrested at a police roadblock; US movie star Marilyn Monroe is found dead in bedroom of her Los Angeles home.

1963: United States, Britain and Soviet Union sign a treaty outlawing nuclear tests in atmosphere, in space and under water.

1965: Cook Islands in South Pacific granted internal self-government by New Zealand.

1969: The US space probe Mariner 7 flies by Mars, sending back unprecedented photographs and scientific data.

1973: Palestinian “Black September” guerrillas attack a line of travellers at Greece’s Athens airport with grenades and machine guns, killing three and wounding 55.

1977: Ten family members of the late Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie escape from house arrest in Addis Ababa and reach Sweden. There are reprisals against Selassie’s family and political associates since his overthrow in 1974.

1990: US troops intervene in Liberia’s civil war to rescue about 70 Americans in Monrovia following hostage threat by rebels.

1991: Iraq admits to UN inspection team that it carried out germ warfare research for four years, but claims it abandoned research shortly after 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

1996: US President Bill Clinton signs a bill to punish foreign businesses that invest in Iran and Libya.

1997: Korean Air jumbo jet carrying 254 people slams into a mountain in Guam while trying to land during a nighttime thunderstorm. Only 26 people survive.

1999: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak expands his Cabinet from 17 to 23 members and appoints Israel’s first Arab deputy foreign minister.

2000: Police in eastern Germany detain dozens of neo-Nazi supporters trying to hold a rally, while hundreds of Germans protest the recent rise in racist attacks.

2001: Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban jail eight foreign aid workers for allegedly preaching Christianity in the Muslim nation.

2006: The Taiwanese Government breaks off diplomatic relations with Chad, saying the African nation was under pressure from China to end its relations with Taiwan, so the island’s leaders made the break before Chad could move on its own.

2008: An American woman receives five puppies cloned from her beloved late pit bull, becoming the inaugural customer of a South Korean company that says it is the world’s first successful commercial canine cloning service.

2009: UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon wins support from key nations for his appeal to Myanmar’s government to free detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and release all political prisoners.

2010: The US Government announces that it has charged 14 people as participants in “a deadly pipeline” to Somalia that routed money and fighters from the United States to the terrorist group al-Shabab.

2011: Italy pledges to work swiftly for a constitutional amendment requiring the government to balance its budget, as Rome feverishly tries to assure domestic and foreign investors its finances are sound and calm nervous markets in Europe.

2012: Iranian state television broadcasts purported confessions by more than a dozen suspects in connection with the killing of five nuclear scientists since 2010.

2013: Jeff Bezos, the Amazon.com founder who helped bring books into the digital age, buys the Washington Post and other newspapers for $250 million.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Ilya Repin, Russian painter (1844-1930); Guy de Maupassant, French writer (1850-1893); John Huston, US film director (1906-1987); Neil Armstrong, US astronaut and first man to set foot on Moon (1930-2012); Loni Anderson, US actress (1946- ); Tawny Kitaen, US actress (1961- ); Maureen McCormick, US actress (1956- )

–AP

Marilyn Monroe.

Star Marilyn Monroe is found dead on this day in history 1962.