Today is the 240th day of 2017. There are 125 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1833: British Parliament bans slavery throughout British Empire.

OTHER EVENTS

1532: Forces of Suleiman I, sultan of Turkey, ravage Carinthia and Croatia.

1574: Treaty of Bristol settles commercial disputes between English and Spanish merchants.

1609: English sea explorer Henry Hudson and his ship, the Half Moon, reach present-day Delaware Bay.

1862: The Second Battle of Bull Run (also known as Second Manassas) begins in Prince William County, Virginia, during the Civil War; the result was a Confederate victory.

1910: Montenegro is proclaimed independent kingdom under Nicholas I.

1916: Italy’s declaration of war against Germany takes effect during World War I.

1917: Ten suffragists demanding that President Woodrow Wilson support a constitutional amendment guaranteeing women the right to vote are arrested as they picketed outside the White House.

1922: The first radio commercial in United States airs on WEAF in New York City. The 10-minute advertisement was for the Queensboro Realty Co, which paid a fee of US$100.

1928: All-Party Congress at Lucknow, India, votes for dominion status within British Empire.

1943: Japanese resistance ends on island of New Georgia in the Solomons during World War II.

1947: Legendary bullfighter Manolete is mortally wounded by a bull during a fight in Linares, Spain. He dies the following day at age 30.

1955: Emmett Till, a black teenager from Chicago, is abducted from his uncle’s home in Money, Mississippi, by two white men after he had supposedly whistled at a white woman; he was found brutally slain three days later.

1963: Some 200,000 people participate in a civil rights rally in Washington, DC, where Dr Martin Luther King Jr delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial.

1966: About 50,000 persons die from a drought-caused famine on the island of Lombok, east of Bali. The investigating team finds the bodies of 28,467 people.

1968: Police and anti-war demonstrators clash in the streets of Chicago as the Democratic National Convention nominated Hubert H Humphrey for president.

1972: Mark Spitz of the United States wins the first two of his seven gold medals at the Munich Olympics, finishing first in the 200-metre butterfly and anchoring the 400-metre freestyle relay. The Soviet women gymnasts win the team all-around.

1973: Earthquake hits area south-west of Mexico City, killing 500 people and injuring 1,000 others.

1975: France flies troops and police to Corsica to quell demonstrations for autonomy.

1981: John W Hinckley Jr pleads innocent to charges of attempting to kill US President Ronald Reagan. He is later acquitted by reason of insanity.

1986: Bolivian Government imposes nationwide state of siege in response to march to La Paz by about 7,000 miners opposed to closing of mines.

1987: A fire damages the Arcadia, Florida, home of Ricky, Robert and Randy Ray, three hemophiliac brothers infected with AIDS whose court-ordered school attendance had sparked a local uproar. Academy Award-winning movie director John Huston dies in Middletown, Rhode Island, at age 81.

1988: Seventy people are killed when three Italian stunt planes collide during an air show at the US Air Base in Ramstein, West Germany, sending flaming debris into a crowd of spectators.

1989: Police say masked Sikh gunmen raid passenger train in India’s Punjab State and massacre at least 22 Hindu passengers.

1990: Iraq declares Kuwait to be its 19th province.

1991: British Prime Minister John Major becomes the first Western leader to visit Moscow since the coup against President Mikhail Gorbachev and to visit China since the 1989 pro-democracy crackdown in Tiananmen Square.

1993: Workers in Nigeria’s key oil industry, air traffic controllers and others launch a strike in a bid to force out the military-backed Government.

1996: The United States denies black nationalist leader Louis Farrakhan permission to accept a promised US$1-billion gift from Libya to help American blacks economically and politically. Democrats nominate US President Bill Clinton for a second term at their national convention in Chicago. The troubled 15-year marriage of Britain’s Prince Charles and Princess Diana officially ends with the issuing of a divorce decree.

1997: Rival factions clash inside Venezuela’s notorious El Dorado prison, leaving 29 prisoners dead and 13 inmates seriously injured.

2000: More than four years after hooded military judges convict American Lori Berenson of planning a rebel attack, Peru’s military overturns her life sentence and clears the way for a new, civilian trial.

2001: Women’s rights groups protest the approval of a new law in Chihuahua, Mexico, which provides for reduced sentences for rapes that were “provoked” by the victim.

2004: Hicham El Guerrouj becomes the first man in 80 years to win the 1,500 and the 5,000 races at one Olympics, joining Finnish great Paavo Nurmi in the history books.

2005: A suicide bomber blows himself up outside a bus station in the Israeli city of Beersheba, critically wounding two security guards in the first attack since Israel began its withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

2007: A devout Muslim, Abdullah Gull, 56, wins Turkey’s presidency after months of confrontation with the secular establishment, promising to be impartial and praising the idea that Islam and the state should be separate.

2008: A former US Marine, accused of killing unarmed Iraqi detainees on November 9, 2004, is acquitted of voluntary manslaughter in a first-of-its-kind federal trial in Riverside, California.

2009: A coroner rules Michael Jackson’s death was a homicide caused primarily by the powerful anaesthetic propofol and another sedative, increasing the likelihood of criminal charges against the pop star’s doctor.

2010: US and Afghan troops repel attackers wearing American uniforms and suicide vests in a pair of simultaneous assaults before dawn on North Atlantic Treaty Organization bases near the Pakistani border, including one where seven Central Intelligence Agency employees died in a suicide attack last year.

2011: A suicide bomber blows himself up inside Baghdad’s largest Sunni mosque, killing 29 people during prayers, a shocking strike on a place of worship similar to the one that brought Iraq to the brink of civil war five years ago.

2012: A woman who let two eight-year-old girls starve in a cellar and helped her paedophile husband carry out horrific abuse of other girls goes from prison to a convent, outraging Belgians who opposed the early release of one of the country’s most despised criminals. Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney sweeps to the Republican presidential nomination at a storm-delayed national convention in Tampa, Florida. Hurricane Isaac spins into the southern Louisiana coast, sending floodwaters surging and unleashing fierce winds, as residents hunkered down behind boarded-up windows.

2013: A military jury sentences Maj Nidal Hasan to death for the 2009 shooting rampage at a Texas military base, handing the army psychiatrist the ultimate punishment after a trial in which he seemed to be courting martyrdom by making almost no effort to defend himself.

2014: Ukraine accuses Russia of entering its territory with tanks, artillery and troops and Western powers said Moscow had lied about its role and dangerously escalated the conflict.

2016: Six scientists complete a yearlong Mars simulation in Hawaii, where they emerge after living in a dome in near isolation on a Mauna Loa mountain. Ryan Harlost leads Endwell, New York, to the Little League World Series title, striking out eight and limiting South Korea to five hits in six innings in a 2-1 victory. Beyonce receives eight honours at the MTV Video Music Awards in New York. Juan Gabriel, a superstar Mexican songwriter and singer who was an icon in the Latin music world, dies at his home in California at age 66.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German poet and philosopher (1749-1832); Leo Tolstoy, Russian writer (1828-1910); Charles Boyer, French-born actor (1899-1978); Robertson Davies, Canadian novelist (1913-1995); Janet Frame, New Zealand author (1924-2004); Shania Twain, US country singer (1965- ); LeAnn Rimes, US country singer (1982 -); Jack Black, actor (1969- )

— AP