Today is the 124th day of 2018. There are 241 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1927: After 2 1/2 years the Hermitage Dam on the Wag Water River in eastern Jamaica is opened. It is 142 ft high, 465 ft wide, has a capacity of 430 million gallons and is to serve the Kingston and St Andrew area.

OTHER EVENTS

1655: English fleet leaves San Domingo, West Indies, and later captures Jamaica.

1843: Natal in South Africa is proclaimed British colony.

1961: A group of “Freedom Riders” leaves Washington, DC, for New Orleans to challenge racial segregation on interstate buses and in bus terminals.

1989: Tens of thousands of Chinese students march to Tiananmen Square, calling for freedom and democracy.

1990: First free elections held in Croatia. The Democratic Union, led by historian and former communist Franjo Tudjman, wins; Latvia’s Parliament declares independence from Soviet Union.

1994: Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO leader Yasser Arafat sign a historic accord on Palestinian autonomy that grants self-rule in the Gaza Strip and Jericho.

1998: A major Swiss bank settles the claim of a 71-year-old Holocaust survivor, the first settlement in the dispute over Jewish-owned accounts missing since World War II.

2001: The US is voted off the UN Human Rights Commission for the first time in the world body’s history.

2005: Israel freezes the handover of West Bank towns, citing Palestinian security forces’ failure to disarm militants in areas under their control.

2006: Ehud Olmert is formally sworn in as Israel’s prime minister with his new coalition government, winning parliamentary approval to pursue his goal of drawing Israel’s final borders by 2010.

2011: President Barack Obama says he has decided not to release death photos of terrorist Osama bin Laden because their graphic nature could incite violence and create national security risks for the United States.

— AP and Observer