Today is the 267th day of 2015. There are 99 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1957: Nine black students who entered Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas withdraw because of a white mob outside.

OTHER EVENTS

1642: Harvard College in Cambridge, Massachusetts, holds its first commencement.

1817: Spain signs treaty with Britain to end slave trade.

1846: The planet Neptune is discovered by German astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle.

1942: The Russians launch a counter-attack against the Germans in Stalingrad after being reinforced by troops that had crossed the Volga. More than 2,000 Germans are killed.

1951: United Nations forces capture “Heartbreak Ridge” in Korea from communists forces.

1952: US Republican vice-presidential candidate Richard M Nixon delivers his “Checkers” speech on TV to refute allegations of improper campaign financing.

1956: Britain and France submit Suez Canal dispute to UN Security Council.

1957: Romania’s request to join Balkan Pact is refused by Greece.

1967: The Soviet Union pledges to send military and economic assistance to North Vietnam, including aircraft, ground-to-air missiles and rocket equipment.

1972: President Ferdinand Marcos declares martial law in the Philippines. It lasts for more than eight years.

1973: Juan Peron is elected for his third and last presidential term in Argentina.

1980: The UN Security Council calls on Iran and Iraq “to desist from all armed activities forthwith and to settle their dispute by peaceful means”. Meanwhile, the US and Soviet Union declare neutrality in the conflict.

1993: The South African Parliament approves a law giving blacks their first official say in the running of the country, authorising the creation of a transitional executive council before the first universal elections.

1997: Armed men raid an Algerian village, shooting or stabbing to death at least 200 people and wounding 100 others.

2005: Simon Wiesenthal, who spent decades tirelessly tracking down Nazis hiding throughout the world, is laid to rest in Israel.

2006: A high-tech train that floats on powerful magnetic fields smashes into a maintenance car on an elevated test track in Germany, killing 23 people and injuring 10 — the first fatalities on a maglev train.

2007: Former President Alberto Fujimori returns to Peru to face charges of corruption and sanctioning death-squad killings, seven years after he fled the country as his Government collapsed in scandal.

2011: Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas takes his people’s quest for independence to the heart of world diplomacy, seeking UN recognition of Palestine and sidestepping negotiations that have foundered for nearly two decades.

2013: Kenyan forces are in the final stages of flushing out terrorists from a besieged shopping mall two days after it was seized by the Somali Islamic extremist group al-Shabab, which is linked to al-Qaeda.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Augustus Caesar, first Roman emperor (63 BC-14 AD); John De Witt, Dutch statesman (1625-1672); Raymond Chandler, US mystery writer (1888-1959); Haile Selassie I, emperor of Ethiopia (1892-1975); Mickey Rooney, US actor-entertainer (1920-2014); Ray Charles, US singer-composer (1932-2004); Julio Iglesias, Spanish singer (1943- ); Bruce Springsteen, US rock singer (1949- ); Ani DiFranco, US singer (1970 -)

—AP