Today is the 208th day of 2017. There are 157 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHTS

1998: White House intern Monica Lewinsky ends six months of silence to talk with prosecutors investigating her relations with US President Bill Clinton.

OTHER EVENTS

1784: Courier De L’Amerique becomes the first French newspaper to be published in the United States.

1789: US Congress establishes the Department of Foreign Affairs, forerunner of the Department of State.

1794: Revolutionary leader Maximilien de Robespierre is arrested by his opponents in Paris and tries to commit suicide, but fails.

1795: Spain signs peace treaty with France, ceding its part of Santo Domingo.

1830: July Revolution starts in Paris in reaction to restrictive policies of Charles X, who is forced from the throne after three days of fighting.

1839: Opium War between China and Britain begins after Chinese authorities seize and burn British cargoes of opium.

1866: The first successful trans-Atlantic telegraph cable between England and the United States is completed.

1909: Orville Wright tests the US Army’s first aeroplane for one hour, 12 minutes.

1940: Billboard magazine begins publishing its best-seller charts of albums and singles; Bugs Bunny makes his film debut in the United States in the Warner Brothers release called A Wild Hare.

1953: An armistice is signed at Panmunjom after three years of negotiations. This agreement, in practice, ends the Korean War.

1954: Britain and Egypt agree on terms to end 72 years of British control of Suez Canal.

1965: US planes carry out first attacks against anti-aircraft missile sites in North Vietnam.

1974: The House Judiciary Committee votes 27-11 to recommend US President Richard Nixon’s impeachment on an obstruction of justice charge in the Watergate case.

1976: Former Japanese Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei is arrested and later convicted for accepting bribes from US Lockheed Corporation.

1980: The deposed Shah of Iran dies at a military hospital outside Cairo, Egypt, at age 60.

1993: The Bosnian factions meet in Geneva for their first direct talks on a Serbo-Croat plan for a confederation of three ethnic mini-states.

1996: A pipe bomb explodes during Olympic Games in Atlanta, when the United States is hosting the Games, killing one and injuring more than 100 people.

1999: The United Nations and the Red Cross cancel aid flights into Afghanistan after rockets fired by a Taliban-opposed alliance hit the Kabul airport.

2000: In Fiji a new Cabinet is sworn in with hopes of restoring calm to the island nation wracked by unrest from a May 19 coup.

2001: Scientist Joseph Miller claims that data collected by NASA’s Viking landers 25 years ago on the surface of Mars show evidence of life; other scientists doubt his claim.

2003: American cyclist Lance Armstrong wins the 100th Tour de France, the most prestigious race in cycling, for the fifth year in a row, tying him for the most consecutive wins.

2005: India’s financial capital is shut down by the strongest rains ever recorded in Indian history, with the intense deluge — 37 inches (94 centimetres) in one day.

2006: Former Haitian Prime Minister Yvon Neptune is released from jail more than two years after his arrest on charges of orchestrating the killing of political opponents at the start of a rebellion that engulfed the country.

2007: Bhutan’s prime minister and six members of his Cabinet resign to pave the way for the first parliamentary elections in the Buddhist kingdom and its transition to democracy.

2008: Iran hangs 29 people after they have been convicted of murder, drug trafficking and other crimes.

2009: Israel hardens its insistence that it would do anything it felt necessary to stop Iran from getting a nuclear bomb, just the ultimatum the United States hoped not to hear as it tries to nudge Iran to the bargaining table.

2010: A US audit has found that the Pentagon cannot account for over 95 per cent of US$9.1 billion in Iraq reconstruction money, spotlighting Iraqi complaints that there is little to show for the massive funds pumped into their cash-strapped, war-ravaged nation.

2012: Britain opens its Olympics in a celebration of Old England and new, featuring a stunt double for Queen Elizabeth II parachuting with James Bond into Olympics Stadium.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Kukai, Japanese Buddhist saint (774-835); Ludovico Sforza, Italian Renaissance prince (1452-1508); Enrique Granados, Spanish composer (1867-1916); Ernst Dohnanyi, Hungarian composer (1877-1960); Geoffrey De Havilland, English aircraft designer (1882-1965); Leo Durocher, US baseball manager (1906-1991); Norman Lear, US TV producer (1922-); Jerry Van Dyke, US actor (1931- ); Bobbie Gentry, country singer (1944- ); Pete Yorn, rock singer/songwriter (1974- ); Jonathan Rhys Meyers, British actor (1977- )