Today is the 266 day of 2019. There are 99 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

2009: President Barack Obama challenges world leaders to shoulder more of the globe’s critical burdens, promising a newly cooperative partner in America, but sternly warning they can no longer castigate the US as a go-it-alone bully while still demanding it cure all ills.

OTHER EVENTS

1518: During the reign of Great Britain’s King Henry VIII, the Royal College of Physicians is established to protect citizens from medical charlatans and quacks.

1642: Harvard College in Cambridge, Massachusetts, holds its first commencement.

1817: Spain signs treaty with Britain to end slave trade.

1846: The planet Neptune is discovered by German astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle.

1942: The Russians launch a counter-attack against the Germans in Stalingrad after being reinforced by troops that had crossed the Volga. More than 2,000 Germans are killed.

1951: United Nations forces capture “Heartbreak Ridge” in Korea from Communists.

1952: US Republican vice-presidential candidate Richard M Nixon delivers his “Checkers” speech on TV to refute allegations of improper campaign financing.

1956: Britain and France submit Suez Canal dispute to UN Security Council.

1957: Nine black students who entered Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas withdraw because of a white mob outside.

1972: President Ferdinand Marcos declares martial law in the Philippines. It lasts for more than eight years.

1973: Juan Peron is elected for his third and last presidential term in Argentina.

1978: Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat returns home to hero’s welcome after Camp David summit that resulted in agreement on framework for peace with Israel.

1986: A force of about 50 armed dissidents infiltrates the Togolese capital of Lome in an attempt to topple President Gnassingbe Eyadema’s Government. They are defeated by the military.

1990: Saddam Hussein says he will destroy Israel and launch an all-out war before allowing the UN embargo to “strangle” Iraq.

1992: France’s deadliest storm in 34 years kills at least 32 people.

1993: The South African Parliament approves a law giving blacks their first official say in the running of the country, authorising the creation of a transitional executive council before the first universal elections.

1994: The UN Security Council eases sanctions on Yugoslavia for 100 days after Serbia promises to support a peace plan for Bosnia and accept civilian monitoring of the Serbian-Bosnian border.

1996: A typhoon batters China’s Hainan Island, leaving at least 38 people dead and 96 missing.

1997: Armed men raid an Algerian village, shooting or stabbing to death at least 200 people and wounding 100 others.

2003: An Indian court sentences one man to death by hanging and 12 others to life in prison for killing a Christian missionary from Australia and his two young sons in an arson attack in 1999.

2005: Simon Wiesenthal, who spent decades tirelessly tracking down Nazis hiding throughout the world, is laid to rest in Israel.

2006: A high-tech train that floats on powerful magnetic fields smashes into a maintenance car on an elevated test track in Germany, killing 23 people and injuring 10 — the first fatalities on a maglev train.

2007: Former President Alberto Fujimori returns to Peru to face charges of corruption and sanctioning death-squad killings, seven years after he fled the country as his government collapsed in scandal.

2008: A 22-year-old gunman opens fire at his trade school in Kauhajoki, Finland, killing 10 people before fatally shooting himself.

2013: Kenyan forces are in the final stages of flushing out terrorists from a besieged shopping mall two days after it was seized by the Somali Islamic extremist group al-Shabab which is linked to al-Qaeda.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Augustus Caesar, first Roman emperor (63 BC-14 AD); John De Witt, Dutch statesman (1625-1672); Raymond Chandler, US writer (1888-1959); Haile Selassie I, emperor of Ethiopia (1892-1975); Mickey Rooney, US actor-entertainer (1920-); Ray Charles, US singer-composer (1932-2004); Julio Iglesias, Spanish singer (1943-); Bruce Springsteen, US rock singer (1949-); Ani DiFranco, US singer (1970-).

— AP