Today is the 268th day of 2014. There are 97 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

2006: Gunmen kill the southern provincial head of Afghanistan’s Ministry of Women’s Affairs, Safia Ama Jan, outside her home in apparent retribution for her efforts to help educate women.

OTHER EVENTS

1493: Christopher Columbus sets sail from Cadiz, Spain, with a flotilla of 17 ships on his second voyage to the Western Hemisphere.

1789: The first United States Congress adopts 12 amendments to the Constitution; sending them to the states for ratification. Ten of the amendments become the Bill of Rights.

1894: British annex Pondoland, connecting Cape Colony and Natal, in Africa.

1959: Premier S W R D Bandaranaike of Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, is assassinated by a Buddhist monk who opposed his economic policies.

1963: The military of the Dominican Republic overthrows the government of President Juan D Bosch seven months after the country’s first democratic elections.

1966: Two typhoons hit Japan, leaving more than 300 people dead and missing.

1970: Jordan’s King Hussein and Palestinian guerrilla leaders agree on ceasefire to end weeklong “Black September” civil war in Jordan that left between 1,000 and 5,000 dead.

1972: Japan’s Premier Kakuei Tanaka arrives in Beijing, becoming first Japanese premier to set foot in China since World War II.

1973: Three-man crew of US space laboratory, Skylab 2, makes safe splashdown in Pacific Ocean after record 59 days in orbit around earth.

1976: Prime Minister Ian Smith accepts a proposal for eventual black rule in Rhodesia in a broadcast to the nation.

1992: The first contingent of a 600-member Japanese UN peacekeeping unit arrives in Cambodia, among the first Japanese soldiers to serve overseas since World War II.

1996: At least 40 Palestinians and 11 Israelis are killed in a fight, triggered by Israel creating a new opening to an archaeological tunnel at a sensitive religious site in Jerusalem.

1997: The Palestinian Authority shuts down 17 Hamas institutions and arrests 13 activists in a move aimed at appeasing the Israeli government. 1999: Students pay tribute to six protesters who died during two days of fighting with police in Jakarta, Indonesia. They were protesting a security law giving the military emergency powers.

2000: Stunned by an apparent electoral defeat, Slobodan Milosevic’s allies urge the opposition to allow a run-off election in Serbia.

2003: Experts from the UN International Atomic Energy Agency say they found traces of highly enriched uranium in Iran at the Kalaye Electric Co on the outskirts of Teheran.

2008: Kgalema Motlanthe, an anti-apartheid activist, becomes the third president of South Africa since the end of white rule.

2010: Israeli settlers have hauled construction equipment into a Jewish settlement deep inside the West Bank, preparing to break ground on a new housing project even as the US races to prevent peace talks from collapsing with the end of an Israeli moratorium on settlement building.

2011: President Mahmoud Abbas receives a hero’s welcome from thousands of cheering, flag-waving Palestinians, having made a bid for United Nations recognition that appears destined to fail but has allowed him to finally step out of the shadow of his predecessor Yasser Arafat.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

William Faulkner, US writer and Nobel laureate (1897- 1962); Dmitri Shostakovich, Soviet composer (1906-1975); Robert Bresson, French film director (1901-1999); Glenn Gould, Canadian pianist (1932-1982); Christopher Reeve, US actor (1952-2004); Barbara Walters, US news anchor (1931- ); Michael Douglas, US actor (1944- ); Will Smith, actor/rapper (1968- ); Catherine Zeta-Jones, Welsh actress (1969- ) —AP