Today is the 331st day of 2015. There are 34 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

2009: Star golfer Tiger Woods is slightly injured in an early morning car accident outside his mansion, the start of one of the swiftest descents ever in public esteem for a major celebrity after reports emerge of serial marital infidelity and lead to a divorce from his Swedish wife Elin Nordegren.

OTHER EVENTS

602: Roman Emperor Maurice and his sons are beheaded at Chalcedon in Asia Minor.

1095: Pope Urban II calls for a crusade.

1582: William Shakespeare marries Anne Hathaway.

1703: Coastal storm in England takes estimated 8,000 lives.

1919: Bulgaria signs World War I peace treaty, which yields territory to Greece and Yugoslavia.

1926: Communists revolt in Java, Indonesia.

1940: Germany annexes French province of Lorraine during World War II.

1942: The French navy at Toulon scuttles its ships and submarines to keep them out of the hands of the Nazis.

1948: The UN Security Council gives full authority to continue negotiations with India and Pakistan for a truce and plebiscite in Kashmir.

1950: United Nations troops retreat in Korea.

1954: Former US diplomat Alger Hiss, convicted of perjury in 1950 for having denied he passed State Department secrets to a communist courier, is released from prison after serving 44 months.

1961: Soviet Union proposes immediate ban on nuclear testing without international controls.

1962: Britain agrees to provide arms to India to resist Chinese aggression.

1967: Israeli forces raze Arab buildings in the Gaza Strip and on the West Bank in response to Arab attacks, while the return of some Arab refugees from the East Bank to the Israeli-occupied West Bank resumes.

1979: Iranian students occupying the US Embassy in Tehran surround the building with explosives and claim to have planted mines in the compound to ward off any attack by the US in an attempt to free the hostages.

1983: A huge rally called by all Uruguayan political parties demands the end of the dictatorship and return to civilian democratic rule.

1985: The British House of Commons approves the Anglo-Irish accord, giving Dublin a consultative role in the governing of British-ruled Northern Ireland.

1989: Colombian aeroplane crashes, killing 107 people.

1990: John Major is elected prime minister of Britain.

1993: After weeks of denial, the British Government admits contacts with the Irish Republican Army.

1996: A gas explosion in a coal mine in Shanxi province of China kills at least 91 miners.

1998: Sensing growing popular pressure to get troops out of Lebanon, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promises a thorough review of Israel’s policy.

1999: Northern Ireland’s biggest party clears the way for the formation of an unprecedented Protestant-Catholic Administration, the long-elusive goal of the 1998 Good Friday peace accord.

2000: The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (Tamil Tigers) rebels prepare to hold unconditional peace negotiations with the government to end Sri Lanka’s 17-year-long civil war.

2002: Prominent Pakistani doctor Dr Amer Azia, who admitted to treating Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders before and after the September 11, 2001 attacks, says that the terrorist mastermind is in excellent health and shows no signs of kidney failure.

2005: Chechens vote in their first parliamentary elections since Russia sent troops back to the Caucasus region six years before to crush a separatist insurgency.

2012: France announces that it plans to vote in favour of recognising a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly, becoming the first major European country to come out in favour and dealing a setback to Israel.

2014: Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries decides to keep its output target on hold and sit out falling crude oil prices that will likely spiral even lower as a result.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Anders Celsius, Swedish astronomer and inventor of Celsius scale (1701-1744); Bruce Lee, Chinese-American actor (1940-1973); Jimi Hendrix, American rock guitarist (1942-1970); Michael Vartan, French actor (1968- )

— AP