Today is the 61st day of 2015. There are 304 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

2011: Pope Benedict XVI makes a sweeping exoneration of the Jewish people for the death of Jesus Christ, tackling one of the most controversial issues in Christianity in a new book.

OTHER EVENTS

1678: French forces of King Louis XIV capture Ghent and Ypres in Belgium.

1776: US Marines fight first battle, capturing British fort in Bahamas in American Revolutionary War.

1801: Spain declares war with Portugal. It is later called the War of the Oranges after a French general allied with Spain sends oranges to the queen of Spain with the message that he would proceed to Lisbon.

1815: Dominion of Kandyan Provinces, within British Empire, is formed in Ceylon — now Sri Lanka.

1836: Texas declares its independence from Mexico.

1877: Republican Rutherford B Hayes is declared the winner of the 1876 US presidential election over Democrat Samuel J Tilden, even though Tilden won the popular vote.

1917: Puerto Ricans are granted US citizenship.

1923: Time magazine makes its debut in United States.

1956: France recognises independence of Morocco; Pakistan decides to stay in British Commonwealth

1972: US spacecraft Pioneer 10 is launched on mission to explore environs of planet Jupiter.

1985: The US Government approves a screening test for AIDS that detects antibodies to the virus, allowing possibly contaminated blood to be excluded from the blood supply.

1993: A gangway collapses when passengers board a ferry on the Congo River, drowning at least 147 in the Republic of Congo.

1996: Voters slam the brakes on plans to sever links with the British monarchy when they hand one of Australia’s biggest-ever election victories to John Howard’s conservative coalition.

1997: In Lueneburg, Germany, hundreds of farmers riding flower-decorated tractors join about 10,000 people demonstrating against the storage of nuclear waste.

2000: Britain’s top law enforcement official rules that former Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet should not be extradited to Spain to stand trial on charges alleging human rights abuses. Pinochet returns to Chile the next day.

2004: Suicide bombers set off simultaneous attacks on Shiite Muslim shrines crowded with pilgrims in two Iraqi cities, killing at least 143 people.

2005: Britain’s Court of Appeals rules that a high school violated a teenage student’s human rights by banning her from wearing a traditional form of Muslim dress to class.

2006: Reversing decades of US policy, President George W Bush ushers India into the world’s exclusive nuclear club with a landmark agreement to share nuclear reactors, fuel and expertise with the energy-starved nation in return for its acceptance of international safeguards.

2008: Dmitry Medvedev, the man Vladimir Putin hand-picked to be his successor, scores a crushing victory in Russia’s presidential election.

2009: President Raul Castro abruptly ousts some of Cuba’s most powerful officials, remaking the government in the biggest shake-up since he took power from his brother Fidel Castro in 2008.

2010: The right-hand man of a Hamas leader assassinated in Dubai confirms Israeli claims that his boss supplied weapons to Palestinian militants.

2012: Rebel forces rout troops loyal to Moammar Gadhafi in a fierce battle over an oil port.

2013: Chadian troops in northern Mali kill Moktar Belmokt, the organizer of the attack on a natural gas plant in Algeria that left 36 foreigners dead.

2014: Western powers prepare a tough response to Russia’s military advance into Ukraine and warn that Moscow could face economic penalties, diplomatic isolation and bolstered allied defences in Europe.

—AP