TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1996: The World Health Organization confirms that the Ebola virus killed 13 villagers in Gabon.

OTHER EVENTS

1878: American inventor Thomas Edison receives a patent for his phonograph.

1881: Kansas becomes the first US state to prohibit all alcoholic beverages.

1945: During World War II, 30,000 US Marines land on Iwo Jima, where they encounter ferocious resistance from Japanese forces before taking control of the island.

1963: US President John F Kennedy says Soviet Union has agreed to withdraw several thousand of its 17,000 troops from Cuba.

1986: The US Senate approves a treaty outlawing genocide, 37 years after the pact had first been submitted for ratification.

1990: About 500 protesters break into government headquarters in Bucharest, Romania, calling for resignation of President Ion Iliescu.

1991: Boris Yeltsin calls for the resignation of Mikhail Gorbachev, saying Gorbachev is sacrificing reform for increased personal power.

1995: Dozens are injured when landowners attack hundreds of parishioners guarding the cathedral in San Cristobal de Las Casas, Mexico, accusing their bishop of fomenting the Zapatista rebellion.

2005: A private banker who had millions hidden in his home in Ireland is freed without immediately being charged as police search financial records nationwide for clues into an alleged Irish Republican Army money-laundering ring and links to a massive Belfast bank robbery.

2006: Israel’s Cabinet approves an immediate freeze on the transfer of hundreds of millions of dollars in tax money to the Palestinians in its first response to the takeover of the Palestinian parliament by the militant group Hamas.

2008: An ailing Fidel Castro resigns as Cuba’s president after nearly a half-century in power.

2012: Iran halts oil shipments to Britain and France in an apparent pre-emptive blow against the European Union after the bloc imposed sanctions on Iran’s crucial fuel exports.

2014: President Barack Obama urges Ukraine to avoid violence against peaceful protesters or face consequences as the United States considers joining European partners to impose sanctions aimed at ending deadly street clashes.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

David Garrick, English author-dramatist (1717-1779); Luigi Boccherini, Italian composer (1743-1805); Sir William McMahon, former Australian prime minister (1908-1988); Merle Oberon, British actress (1911-1979); Smokey Robinson, US singer (1940- ); Michael Nader, US actor (1945- ); England’s Prince Andrew (1960-); Seal, US singer (1963- ); Benicio Del Toro, actor (1967- )

— AP