Today is the 145th day of 2018. There are 220 days left in the year.

Today’s highlight

1986: An estimated seven million Americans participate in ‘Hands Across America’, forming a line across the country to raise money for the nation’s hungry and homeless.

OTHER EVENTS

1787: The Constitutional Convention is convened in Philadelphia.

1846: Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte escapes to London from imprisonment in Ham, France. He returns two years later and is elected president of France.

1911: Revolution in Mexico overthrows President Porfirio Diaz.

1914: Britain’s House of Commons passes Irish Home Rule Bill, but Irish autonomy remains suspended during World War I.

1915: With the European powers preoccupied by war, China is forced to accept a Japanese ultimatum regarding rights and privileges.

1923: Independence of Transjordan — now Jordan — under Amir Abdullah is proclaimed.

1961: US President John F Kennedy asks the nation to work toward putting a man on the moon by the end of the decade.

1963: Leaders of six African nations, meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, form Organisation of African Unity.

1969: Parliamentary Government in Sudan is overthrown in bloodless coup and Major General Jafaar Numeiry heads new military regime.

1970: United States places first of its MIRV missiles, with multiple warheads capable of striking different targets, in underground silos in North Dakota.

1979: American Airlines DC-10 loses an engine and nosedives into ground at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, killing all 272 people aboard.

1985: Emir of Kuwait escapes death when terrorists detonate a bomb in his motorcade. Extremist Jihad Islamic organisation claims responsibility.

1988: Israeli army imposes curfews confining 200,000 Arabs as Palestine Liberation Organization-mandated general strike shuts down commerce and transportation in occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

1989: Chinese Premier Li Peng denies that troops surrounding Beijing are deployed to crush student protests.

1991: In a two-day airlift, Israel brings 15,000 Ethiopian Jews from the besieged city of Addis Ababa to Israel.

1992: Jay Leno makes his debut as permanent host of NBC’s Tonight Show, succeeding Johnny Carson.

1997: Rebels topple the Government of Sierra Leone in a violent coup; Polish voters adopt a constitution that removes the last traces of communism.

1998: Indonesia’s new president, B J Habibie, announces that elections will be held and begins releasing some political prisoners.

1999: NATO’s top policy makers approve a plan for a 50,000-strong force to be sent to Kosovo when Serb troops withdraw.

2000: The Chinese army begins removing British names from military buildings in Hong Kong.

2001: Human rights organisation Amnesty International marks 40 years of activism. The organisation, which won the Nobel Prize in 1977, has dealt with the cases of 47,000 prisoners of conscience.

2002: A China Airlines passenger jet carrying 206 passengers and 19 crew members breaks up in the air and crashes into the Taiwan Strait.

2003: The Israeli Cabinet votes to accept the steps outlined in an internationally endorsed “road map” for Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts, but notes that it is not declaring unqualified support for the road map as a whole.

2007: North Korea fires a salvo of test missiles into its coastal waters, flexing naval muscles as South Korea launches its most advanced destroyer ever, armed with a high-tech US air defence system.

2008: Michel Suleiman is sworn in as Lebanon’s president after parliament elected him in a long-delayed vote following an 18-month political stalemate that brought the country to the brink of another civil war.

Today’s birthdays

Ralph Waldo Emerson, US writer (1803-1882); Josip Broz Tito, Yugoslavia’s president (1892-1980); Beverly Sills, US opera singer (1929-2007); Ian McKellen, English actor (1939-); John Newcombe, Australian tennis star (1944- ); David Graham, Australian golfer (1946- ); Mike Myers, Canadian actor/comedian (1963- ); Lauryn Hill, US singer (1975- ); Frank Oz, British-born director/voice of Yoda and Miss Piggy (1944- )

— AP