Today is the 64th day of 2016. There are 302 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1965: Syria orders nationalisation of nine oil companies, including affiliates of two US concerns.

OTHER EVENTS

1632: Sweden’s King Gustavus II resumes his Palatinate campaign in Germany.

1681: England’s King Charles II grants a charter to William Penn for land that later becomes the US state of Pennsylvania.

1789: The Constitution of the United States goes into effect as the first Federal Congress meets in New York City.

1797: British troops under Lord Lake quell rebellion in Ulster, Ireland.

1829: An unruly crowd mobs the White House during the inaugural reception for US President Andrew Jackson.

1917: German army begins major withdrawal on Western Front in World War I.

1933: The start of US President Franklin Roosevelt’s first Administration has the first woman to serve in the Cabinet: Labor Secretary Frances Perkins.

1945: Soviet troops reach Baltic Sea in drive across German province of Pomerania.

1970: French submarine with 57 aboard is lost in Mediterranean Sea off the Riviera.

1972: Soviet Union signs agreement with Libya to jointly develop and refine Libyan oil, a pact seen as a pressure tactic against Western oil companies.

1973: Eight Black September terrorists end their occupation of Saudi Arabian Embassy in Khartoum, Sudan, after slaying three foreign diplomats.

1977: Earthquake devastates Bucharest and other towns in Romania, where death toll eventually reaches more than 1,000.

1987: US President Ronald Reagan addresses the nation on the Iran-Contra affair, acknowledging his overtures to Iran had “deteriorated” into an arms-for-hostages deal.

1990: African National Congress loyalists overthrow the government of South African homeland of Ciskei.

1994: Four Muslim extremists are convicted in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York.

1996: A suicide bomber strikes outside Tel Aviv’s biggest shopping centre, killing at least 14 people. It is the fourth bombing in Israel in nine days.

1998: Flash floods in Pakistan kill at least 300 people, including dozens of schoolchildren trapped by raging waters. Another 1,500 people are missing and feared dead.

1999: The US Marine pilot whose plane clipped off a gondola cable in the Italian Alps, killing 20 people a year earlier, is acquitted by a US military court, causing dismay in Italy.

2003: A bomb explodes just outside Davao International Airport on the southern island of Mindanao in the Philippines, killing at least 21 people and injuring 150 others.

2005: Flags fly at half-staff as Canadians grapple with the deadliest attack on police officers in 120 years, after four Mounties were slain during a raid on a marijuana farm in a rural western hamlet.

2007: Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo and rebel leader Guillaume Soro sign a peace accord reuniting the country by dismantling a vast buffer zone that separated the two sides.

2010: Turkey, a key Muslim ally of the United States, angrily withdraws its US ambassador after a congressional committee approves a resolution branding the World War I-era killing of Armenians a genocide.

2012: Vladimir Putin claims victory in Russia’s presidential election before tens of thousands of cheering supporters, even as the opposition and independent observers insist the vote has been marred by widespread fraud.

2013: Dozens of Syrian soldiers who had crossed into Iraq for refuge are ambushed in an attack that killed 48 of them and heightened concerns that the country could be drawn into Syria’s civil war.

2015: China announces that its official military budget will grow by 10.1 per cent in the coming year, amid unease among Beijing’s neighbours about its growing might and territorial ambitions.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Prince Henry the Navigator, Portuguese patron of explorers (1394-1460); Antonio Vivaldi, Italian composer (1648-1741); Sir Henry Raeburn, Scottish artist (1756-1823); Charles Goren, US contract bridge authority (1901-1991); Miriam Makeba, South African singer (1932-2008); Patricia Heaton, US actress (1958- ); Chastity Bono, daughter of Sonny and Cher (1969- ); Catherine O’Hara, US actress (1954- ); Scott Hicks, Australian director (1953- )

— AP