Today is the 216th day of 2017. There are 149 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1964: The bodies of missing US civil rights activists Michael H Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James E Chaney are found buried in an earthen dam in Mississippi.

OTHER EVENTS

1578: Portugal’s King Sebastian is killed when his forces, on a crusade to Morocco, are overwhelmed by a larger Moroccan army.

1892: Andrew and Abby Borden are axed to death in their home in Fall River, Massachusetts. Lizzie Borden, Andrew’s daughter from a previous marriage, is accused of the killings and acquitted.

1914: Germany invades Belgium, opening World War I fighting; Britain declares war on Germany; United States declares its neutrality.

1944: Nazi police capture 14-year-old Anne Frank and seven other Jews in hiding place in Amsterdam during World War II.

1950: Moscow negotiates a trade and barter agreement with Iran, two days after large quantities of American machinery financed by loans arrive to start improvement projects meant to alleviate unemployment in Iran.

1958: The Greek Cypriots EOKA Underground declare a military truce in Cyprus with Turkish Cypriots and British security forces. They vow to continue fighting if provoked.

1968: Israeli planes carry out a heavy raid on Arab guerrilla bases 10 miles (16 kilometres) inside Jordan, killing 23 civilians and 5 soldiers.

1971: US Apollo 15 spacecraft heads back to Earth after a six-day mission exploring the Moon.

1977: US President Jimmy Carter signs a measure establishing the Department of Energy.

1982: Three days after the UN Security Council demanded a ceasefire in the Lebanon war, Israeli tanks roll across the “green line” into west Beirut in an attempt to drive out the Palestine Liberation Organisation. Seventy people are killed.

1986: Britain’s Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher reluctantly offers to impose limited sanctions against South Africa.

1990: Twelve nations of European Community ban oil imports, embargo arms and suspend most trade with Iraq after invasion of Kuwait.

1993: Japan’s Cabinet resigns, ending 38 years of rule by the Liberal Democratic Party.

1994: Yugoslavia withdraws support for Bosnia’s Serbs, sealing the 300-mile (480-kilometre) border between Yugoslavia and Serb-held Bosnia and backing out of a war it bankrolled for more than two years at the expense of its own economy.

2007: NASA launches the Phoenix Mars Lander, a robotic dirt and ice digger, rocketed on a nine-month, 422 million-mile (680-million-kilometre) journey that will culminate in the first ever landing within the red planet’s Arctic Circle to analyse soil and ice, looking for traces of organic compounds.

2009: North Korean leader Kim Jong Il issues a “special pardon” freeing two jailed American journalists after talks with former US President Bill Clinton.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Percy Bysshe Shelley, English poet (1792-1822); Hans Christian Andersen, Danish fairy-tale writer (1805-1875); Britain’s Queen Mother Elizabeth (1900-2002); Louis Armstrong, US jazz musician (1901-1971); Raoul Wallenberg, Swedish diplomat (1912-1947); Rene Goscinny, French author of Asterix (1926-1977); Billy Bob Thornton, US actor (1955- )

—AP