Today is the 221st day of 2018. There are 144 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1936: In a blow to Hitler’s plan to have the Berlin Olympics prove Aryan superiority, black US athlete Jesse Owens becomes the first Olympian to win four Olympic gold medals.

OTHER EVENTS

480 BC: Greek troops led by Spartan King Leonidas are overcome by the Persians at Thermopylae after a heroic stand.

378 BC: Visigoths annihilate a Roman army and kill the emperor at Adrianople (present-day Edirne, Turkey), marking the beginning of serious barbarian inroads on Roman territory.

1615: Second War of Religion breaks out in France.

1790: The ship Columbia returns to Boston Harbour after a three-year circumnavigation, becoming the first ship to carry the American flag around the world.

1792: Revolutionary commune is established in Paris, France to remove the influence of government.

1898: Spain formally accepts peace terms ending Spanish-American War.

1902: Edward VII is crowned king of England following the death of his mother, Queen Victoria.

1919: Anglo-Persian agreement is signed at Tehran to preserve integrity of Persia.

1942: Britain arrests Indian nationalist Mohandas Gandhi. He is interned until 1944.

1945: US plane drops second atomic bomb, destroying more than half of Nagasaki, Japan, and killing an estimated 74,000. Despite nuclear proliferation, it marks the last time any country has used such a device for mass destruction in combat.

1954: Greece, Yugoslavia and Turkey sign treaty of mutual assistance.

1956: UN Security Council adopts US-proposed resolution calling for ceasefire between Greek and Turkish Cypriots on Cyprus.

1965: Singapore proclaims its independence from the Malaysian Federation.

1969: US actress Sharon Tate and four other people are found murdered in her Los Angeles home. Cult leader Charles Manson and his disciples are later convicted.

1974: Richard Nixon becomes the first US president to resign from office. Gerald R Ford succeeds him.

1984: France and Britain start an international effort by dispatching ships at the Suez Canal to help clear the Red Sea of mines.

1985: Fighting in Beirut breaks out between Christian and Muslim militiamen. Thousands of rocket, mortar and artillery rounds crash into residential areas on both sides, killing at least 43 people.

1988: Army troops in Yangon, Myanmar, open fire on thousands of demonstrators who call for overthrow of President Sein Lwin.

1990: UN Security Council unanimously declares Iraq’s annexation of Kuwait invalid. Iraq seals its borders, raising concern about thousands of foreigners in Iraq and Kuwait.

1991: Hundreds of police use guns and tear gas to battle pro-apartheid activists who try to stop President F W de Klerk from speaking in Ventersdorp, South Africa.

1992: Thousands of frightened Afghans flee Kabul as warring guerrilla factions pound the capital with rockets.

1994: Hijackers kill a Cuban navy lieutenant and force four sailors overboard before setting sail in the commandeered vessel for the United States.

1996: Chechen rebels in the center of Grozny repel Russian attacks, supported by artillery and aircraft fire.

1999: Russian President Boris Yeltsin fires his Cabinet, naming Vladimir Putin as his new prime minister.

2000: Lebanese security forces move into the former Israeli-occupied zone in southern Lebanon, restoring a semblance of state authority for the first time in 24 years to a region torn by conflict.

2004: Russian bailiffs freeze the assets of Yukos’ main production unit, days after a court ruled their seizure illegal.

2005: A Cuban official calls on the US Government to release five Cuban men serving long terms on espionage conspiracy charges after a US federal appeals court threw out their convictions and sentences.

2006: Riot police in a divided corner of Northern Ireland block supporters of Irish Republican Army dissidents from parading in a hard-line Protestant town, as IRA dissidents are accused of firebombings.

2007: Mauritania passes a law promising jail time for slave-holders, an important step in the northwest African country’s push to eliminate a practice that has quietly persisted despite a 25-year-old ban.

2008: The fatal stabbing of the father of a former Olympian at a Beijing landmark casts a sad shadow over the first full day of Olympic competition, just hours after China’s jubilant opening of the Summer Games.

2009: A typhoon pummels China’s eastern coast, toppling houses, flooding villages and forcing nearly a million people to flee to safety.

2010: Rescuers lift muddy bodies into trucks, and aid convoys choke the road into the remote Chinese town of Zhouqu where hundreds died and more than 1,100 were missing from landslides caused by heavy rain that has flooded swaths of Asia and spread misery to millions.

2011: NATO rejects growing international criticism of its airstrike on Libyan television last month, saying it has no evidence the attack caused any casualties.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Isaak Walton, English biographer (1593-1683); John Dryden, English poet-dramatist (1631-1700); Tove Jansson, Finnish author (1914-2001); Leonid Kuchma, former president of Ukraine (1938- ); Melanie Griffith, US actress (1957- ); Whitney Houston, US singer (1963-2012); Gillian Anderson, US actress (1968- ); Eric Bana, Australian actor (1968- ).