Today is the 145th day of 2016. There are 221 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight

2010: Jamaican security forces storm Tivoli Gardens, a West Kingston inner-city community, to arrest Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke who is wanted by the US on drug and gunrunning charges. Thugs allegedly loyal to Coke torched three police stations in the city the day before.

Other Events

1830: The first passenger railroad in the United States begins service between Baltimore and Elliott’s Mills, Maryland.

1844: Samuel FB Morse transmits the message, “What hath God wrought!” from Washington to Baltimore as he formally opens America’s first telegraph line.

1881: Some 200 people die when the Canadian ferry Princess Victoria sinks near London, Ontario.

1890: Italy reorganises her Red Sea territories as colony of Eritrea.

1949: The Federal Republic of Germany comes into being in the parts of Germany occupied by the Western allies with the proclamation of its constitution.

1958: United Press International is formed through a merger of the United Press and the International News Service.

1962: London conference of Barbados, Windward and Leeward Islands ends with proposals of “Little Eight” to form new West Indies federation.

1972: United States and Soviet Union agree to put US and Soviet spacemen in orbit together by 1975.

1976: Britain and France open trans-Atlantic Concorde service to Washington.

1992: US President George Bush orders the Coast Guard to intercept Haitian refugees at sea and return them to Haiti.

1994: Stampede kills 270 pilgrims at shrine in Mecca, Saudi Arabia.

1998: First multi-party vote in a region ruled by China’s Communists is held in Hong Kong. Pro-democracy parties win most of the legislature seats that were up for vote.

1999: Sonia Gandhi agrees to take back the presidency of India’s main opposition Congress Party, ending a leadership crisis.

2000: The Santiago Court of Appeals strips General Augusto Pinochet of immunity from prosecution, clearing the way for the ailing former dictator’s prosecution on human rights violations

2002: US President George W Bush and Russian President Vladimir V Putin sign a nuclear arms reduction treaty that calls for both nations to slash their nuclear stockpiles by two-thirds over the next decade.

2007: The US government stops all imports of Chinese toothpaste to test for diethylene glycol, a deadly chemical reportedly found in tubes sold elsewhere in the world.

2009: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel willl continue to build homes in existing West Bank settlements, defying US calls to halt settlement growth.

2010: The doctor whose research linking autism and the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella influenced millions of parents to refuse the shot for their children is banned from practising medicine in his native Britain.

2011: Egypt’s prosecutor general orders former President Hosni Mubarak put on trial on charges of corruption and conspiring in the deadly shootings of protesters during the uprising that ousted him, a stunning step against a leader whose power was nearly unquestioned for three decades.

Today’s Birthdays

Jean-Paul Marat, French revolutionary (1743-1793); England’s Queen Victoria (1819-1901); Jan Smuts, South African prime minister and general (1870-1950); U Ne Win, military dictator of Burma (1911-2002); Joseph Brodsky, Russian-American poet and Nobel laureate (1940-1996); Bob Dylan, US singer (1941-); Tommy Chong, US comedian (1938-); Patti LaBelle, US singer (1944-); Jim Broadbent, British actor (1949-); Rosanne Cash, country singer (1955-); Kristin Scott Thomas, actress (1960-).

—AP and Observer