Today is the 246th day of 2015. There are 119 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1978: Pope John Paul II becomes the 264th pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church.

OTHER EVENTS

1189: England’s King Richard I is crowned in Westminster Abbey.

1497: Manuel, king of Portugal, marries Isabella of Spain. One of the conditions for the marriage is that he expel all Jews from Portugal.

1609: English navigator Henry Hudson discovers Manhattan, looking for a passage to India on behalf of the Dutch West India Company.

1658: Oliver Cromwell, the Lord Protector of England, dies in London; his son, Richard, succeeds him.

1783: Representatives of the United States and Britain sign the Treaty of Paris, officially ending the Revolutionary War.

1791: French constitution is passed by National Assembly, making France a constitutional monarchy.

1861: During the Civil War, Confederate forces invade the border state of Kentucky, which had declared its neutrality in the conflict.

1868: The Japanese city of Edo is renamed Tokyo.

1916: The first German Zeppelin bomber is shot down over England.

1923: The United States and Mexico resume diplomatic relations.

1939: Britain, France, Australia, and New Zealand declare war on Germany, two days after the Nazi invasion of Poland.

1943: The British Eighth Army invade Italy during World War II, the same day Italy signs a secret armistice with the Allies.

1945: Singapore is returned to British control after being occupied by the Japanese since 1942.

1951: Television soap opera Search for Tomorrow made its debut on CBS.

1962: Poet E E Cummings dies in North Conway, NH, at age 67.

1971: Oil state of Qatar gains independence from Britain.

1972: American swimmer Mark Spitz wins the sixth of his seven gold medals at the Munich Olympics as he placed first in the 100-metre freestyle.

1976: America’s Viking 2 lander touched down on Mars to take the first close-up, colour photographs of the planet’s surface.

1981: US Coast Guardsmen and federal agents seize 20 tons of Colombian marijuana and arrest 33 people in several raids on Long Island, New York, and offshore.

1989: Thousands of blacks march and bathe at “whites only” beaches in nationwide defiance campaign in South Africa.

1990: Russian President Boris Yeltsin unveils plan for Soviet republics to take control of their own economies.

1995: A French airplane is hijacked and forced to land at Geneva’s airport. Police overpower the lone hijacker minutes after he releases all 279 passengers.

1996: US President Bill Clinton unleashes cruise missiles at military targets in southern Iraq twice to punish Saddam Hussein for attacking Kurds in a UN-designated safe zone in northern Iraq.

1997: A Vietnam Airlines jet crashes at Phnom Penh, Cambodia, airport, killing 65 people.

1999: A French judge closes a two-year inquiry into the car crash that killed Princess Diana, dismissing all charges against nine photographers and a press motorcyclist, and concluding the accident was caused by an inebriated driver.

2000: Russian President Vladimir Putin debuts on the world stage at the UN Millennium Summit in an effort to restore Russia’s clout and develop new partners.

2002: Defence Secretary Donald H Rumsfeld said the Bush administration had secret information supporting its claims that Saddam Hussein was close to developing nuclear weapons.

2003: North Korea’s parliament, the Supreme People’s Assembly, votes unanimously to re-elect the country’s leader, Kim Jong Il, to a new five-year-term as chairman of the National Defence Commission.

2005: More than 100 supporters of Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez march through Caracas to demand justice against American religious broadcaster Pat Robertson for suggesting their president should be killed.

2005: Millionaire adventurer Steve Fossett, 63, goes missing after taking off in a single-engine plane in western Nevada. (The wreckage of the plane and traces of his remains were found more than a year later.) Panama blasts away part of a hillside next to the canal, marking the start of the waterway’s biggest expansion since it opened in 1914. Jerry Lewis raises nearly $64 million during his annual Labor Day Telethon.

2006: Europe’s first spacecraft to the moon smashes into a volcanic plain as planned, signalling the end of a successful mission to test a new propulsion system and navigation technology for flights to other planets.

2011: Former International Monetary Fund leader Dominique Strauss-Kahn heads back to his native France, leaving the United States behind after the collapse of a sensational sexual assault case that cost him his job and possibly his French presidential ambitions.

2013: Microsoft’s acquisition of Nokia’s troubled smartphone business represents a daring $7.2-billion attempt by the software giant and once-influential cellphone maker to catch up with the mobile computing revolution that threatens to leave them in the technological dust.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY

Ferdinand Porsche, German designer of Volkswagen car (1875-1951); Urho Kekkonen, president of Finland (1900-1986); Sir McFarlane Burnet, Australian Nobel-prize winning physician (1899-1985); “Beetle Bailey” cartoonist Mort Walker (1923- ); Actress Eileen Brennan (1923-2013); Country singer Tompall Glaser (1933-2013); Actor Charlie Sheen (1965- ); Singer Jennifer Paige (1973- ); Actor Nick Wechsler (1978- ); Actor Garrett Hedlund (1984- ); Olympic gold medal snowboarder Shaun White (1986- ).

–AP