Today is the 355th day of 2017. There are 10 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1620: Pilgrims go ashore from ship Mayflower at what is now Plymouth, Massachusetts, in United States.

OTHER EVENTS

1817: Governor Lachlan Macquarie formally adopts name “Australia” for British colony.

1851: French plebiscite supports new constitution drawn up by Louis Napoleon.

1898: Radium is discovered by scientists Pierre and Marie Curie.

1942: British 8th Army reoccupies Benghazi in Africa in World War II.

1953: Iran’s former Premier Mohammed Mosadegh is sentenced to three years in prison for trying to lead revolt against shah.

1960: Saudi Arabia’s Premier Emir Faisal resigns, and King Saud takes over government.

1967: Louis Washkansky, first man to undergo heart transplant, dies in Cape Town, South Africa, 18 days after surgery.

1971: Austrian diplomat Kurt Waldheim is chosen secretary general of United Nations.

1972: East and West Germany formally sign treaty ending more than two decades of official enmity.

1979: A Peace agreement is signed, ending seven-year Rhodesian guerrilla war and 15-year rebellion against the British crown.

1988: A Pan Am jet explodes over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people in the air and on the ground. Libyan agents are tried for the bombing.

1989: Nicolae Ceausescu declares state of emergency in Timosoara, Romania, after tens of thousands of protesters fill the streets in mass demonstrations.

1990: Albanian Government orders removal of all statues and symbols bearing Josef Stalin’s name.

1992: A chartered Dutch jumbo jet with 340 people aboard breaks apart and bursts into flames while trying to land in Faro, Portugal, in a storm. Fifty-two travellers and two crew members are killed.

1993: Russian President Boris Yeltsin dissolves the powerful Security Ministry, saying the successor to the KGB secret police failed to warn him of dangerous political currents in Russia.

1995: At least 75 people are killed and 76 injured in Badrshein, Egypt, when a train slams into the Cairo-to-Luxor express.

1997: Nigeria’s deputy head of state, Lieutenant General Oladipo Diya, and 11 others are arrested and accused of plotting to overthrow General Sani Abacha.

1998: After a quick trial, Chinese dissidents Xu Wenli and Wang Youcai are sentenced to more than a decade behind bars for trying to register the China Democracy Party.

2000: Security forces and hundreds of leftist prisoners wielding makeshift flame-throwers face off for a third day in Turkish jails in a conflict that has left at least 19 people dead.

2001: Six Palestinians are killed in the Gaza Strip and dozens injured in clashes with Palestinian security forces that erupted at the funeral of a youth killed by Palestinian police the previous day. The violence marks the deadliest fighting among Palestinians since 1994.

2002: A US soldier is killed in a battle with unidentified gunmen in the eastern province of Paktika, near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, making him the first American killed in Afghanistan since May.

2005: Britain’s most famous gay couple — Sir Elton John and Canadian film-maker David Furnish — tie the knot in a much-anticipated ceremony, capping the first week of legalised civil unions for same-sex couples in the United Kingdom.

2006: In the biggest US criminal case involving civilian deaths to come out of the Iraq war, eight Marines are charged in the killings of 24 Iraqi civilians during a bloody, door-to-door sweep in the town of Haditha that came after their comrade was killed by a roadside bomb.

2007: Ignoring works by Matisse, Renoir and Van Gogh, thieves steal two paintings — one by Pablo Picasso and another by Candido Portinari — in the first successful heist in the 60-year history of Brazil’s premier modern art museum.

2010: Iraq seats a freely elected government after nine months of haggling, bringing together the main ethnic and religious groups in a fragile balance that could make it difficult to rebuild a nation devastated by war as American troops prepare for their final withdrawal.

2011: The Barack Obama Administration ramps up its criticism of the Syrian government, accusing it of continuing to “mow down” its citizens despite promises to halt a brutal crackdown on reformers and calling on President Bashar Assad to leave power.

2012: Pope Benedict XVI presses his opposition to gay marriage, denouncing what he described as people eschewing their God-given gender identities to suit their sexual choices in the face of gains by same-sex marriage proponents in the US and Europe.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Benjamin Disraeli, English statesman-author (1804-1881); Mohammed Ali Jinnah, founder of Pakistan (1876-1948); Joseph Stalin, Soviet leader (1879-1953); Kurt Waldheim, former Austrian president and UN secretary general (1918-2007); Kel Nagle, Australian champion golfer (1920-2015); Alicia Alonso, Cuban-born ballerina (1921- ); Jane Fonda, US actress (1937- ); Samuel L Jackson, US actor (1948- ); Julie Delpy, French actress/director (1969- )

— AP