Today is the 42nd day of 2015. There are 323 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1990: African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela is released after 27 years in South African prisons.

OTHER EVENTS

1254: The British Parliament first convenes.

1531: King Henry VIII is recognised as Supreme Head of the Church in England.

1812: Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry signs a redistricting law that favours his party — giving rise to the term “gerrymandering”.

1889: Constitution is granted in Japan, with two-chamber Diet, but Emperor retains extensive powers.

1922: Nine-power treaty is signed in Washington for securing China’s independence and maintaining “open door” policy.

1929: Italy signs the Lateran Treaty; establishing an independent Vatican City.

1945: US President Franklin Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Josef Stalin sign the Yalta Agreement during World War II.

1956: Referendum in Malta favours integration with Britain.

1968: Communist troops execute 300 civilians in South Vietnam and bury them in a mass grave during fighting for city of Hue.

1971: Treaty banning nuclear weapons from ocean floor is signed by 63 nations in ceremonies at Washington, London and Moscow.

1975: Margaret Thatcher becomes the first female head of the British Conservative Party.

1979: Followers of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini seize power in Iran, nine days after the religious leader returns to his home country following 15 years of exile.

1989: Barbara Harris becomes the first consecrated female Episcopal bishop in United States.

1999: The US Justice Department closes the books on a $1.6-billion reparations programme for ethnic Japanese interned in American camps during World War II.

2001: About 7,500 counter-demonstrators turn out to protest against a neo-Nazi march in western Germany that draws 250 people. Four police officers suffer minor injuries, and 17 demonstrators are arrested.

2006: Adventurer Steve Fossett completes the longest non-stop flight in aviation history with an emergency landing in England, flying 26,389 miles (42,460 kilometres) in about 76 hours, but stopping early because of mechanical problems.

2010: Iranian security forces unleash a crushing sweep against opposition protesters as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad uses the 31st anniversary of the Islamic revolution to defy the West and boast his country is now a “nuclear state”.

2011: Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak resigns and hands power to the military after protesters flood the streets of Cairo and other cities.

2012: Gunmen assassinate an army general in Damascus in the first killing of a high ranking military officer in the Syrian capital since the uprising against President Bashar Assad’s regime began in March.

2013: Pope Benedict XVI does what no pope has done in more than half-a-millennium, announcing his resignation and sending the already troubled Roman Catholic church scrambling to replace the leader of its 1 billion followers.