Today is the 254th day of 2015. There are 111 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

2012: Mainly ultraconservative protesters climb the walls of the US Embassy in Egypt’s capital and bring down the American flag, replacing it with a black Islamic flag to protest a US-produced film attacking the Prophet Muhammad.

OTHER EVENTS

1297: Scottish rebels under William Wallace slaughter a larger English force at Stirling Bridge.

1783: American statesman and philosopher Benjamin Franklin negotiates a peace settlement between United States, Great Britain and France; calling it the Treaty of Paris.

1830: Republic of Ecuador is established and granted a constitution by Colombia under which it is to be part of the Confederation of Colombia.

1914: Two Australian battalions land near Rabaul and occupy the German colony on New Britain, off north-eastern New Guinea.

1922: British mandate in Palestine is proclaimed while Arabs declare day of mourning.

1936: US President Franklin Roosevelt dedicates Boulder Dam — now Hoover Dam — by pressing a key in Washington to signal the startup of the dam’s first hydroelectric generator in Nevada.

1944: US President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill meet in Canada at the second Quebec Conference.

1955: Thirteen US Air Force men are killed when a B-29 plane crashes in the Pacific between Japan and Formosa.

1973: Chile’s President Salvador Allende dies in a US-supported military coup, and military officials say he committed suicide rather than surrender.

1978: At least 20 dead and 100 wounded are reported in gun battles between Nicaraguan troops and rebels intent on toppling President Anastasio Somoza.

1990: US President George H W Bush addresses a national television audience to gain support for his deployment of US military forces to the Persian Gulf region to confront the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.

1993: In front of human rights observers, a prominent supporter of exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide is dragged from a Mass and assassinated outside a church in Haiti.

1998: Independent counsel Kenneth Starr tells the US Congress there are 11 grounds for impeachment of President Bill Clinton; Russian lawmakers approve Yevgeny Primakov as prime minister.

2001: Terrorists crash two hijacked airplanes into the World Trade Center in New York City, bringing down the twin 110-storey towers, killing more than 2,700 people. Another hijacked jetliner slams into the Pentagon in Washington DC, killing at least 189 people. A fourth hijacked plane crashes in rural southern Pennsylvania, killing 44 people aboard.

2003: Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh dies in a hospital after being stabbed repeatedly the previous day by an unidentified male attacker while shopping at a department store in Stockholm.

2006: The Islamic group Hamas makes a deal to share power with the more moderate Fatah headed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas after six months of crushing sanctions imposed to force the militants to recognize Israel and end violence.

2008: Spain’s highest court rejects plans for a referendum in the Basque region on self-determination.

2011: A convoy carrying ousted Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi’s son al-Saadi crosses into neighboring Niger, a spokesman for Niger’s government says, one of the highest-profile former regime figures to flee.

2013: Syrian opposition forces feel let down and more divided than ever because of President Barack Obama’s decision to seek a diplomatic path to disarming Damascus of its chemical weapons.

2014: Key Arab allies promise to “do their share” to fight Islamic militants but NATO member Turkey refuses to join in.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

D H Lawrence, English author (1885-1930); O Henry (William Sydney Porter), US writer (1862-1910); Ferdinand Marcos, Philippine president (1917-1989); Tom Landry, US football coach (1924-2000); Brian DePalma, US film director (1940- ); Harry Connick Jr, US singer/actor (1967- ); Moby, US DJ/musician (1965- ); Mickey Hart, US rock drummer (1943- )

— AP