Today is the 324th day of 2019. There are 41 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

2012: The Church of England’s governing body blocks a move to permit women to serve as bishops, in a vote so close it fails to settle the question of female leadership and likely condemns the institution to years more debate on the issue.

OTHER EVENTS

1789: New Jersey becomes the first US state to ratify the Constitution’s Bill of Rights.

1818: Simon Bolivar formally declares Venezuela independent of Spain.

1873: Rival cities of Buda and Pest are united to form the capital of Hungary.

1901: Second Hay-Pauncefoot Treaty provides for construction of the Panama Canal by the United States.

1917: The Ukrainian Republic is proclaimed.

1945: International War Crimes Tribunal begins as 24 accused Nazi World War II criminals go on trial in Nuremberg, Germany.

1947: England’s Princess Elizabeth and Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten are married in London’s Westminster Abbey.

1959: Britain, Norway, Portugal, Switzerland, Austria, Denmark and Sweden meet to form European Free Trade Association.

1969: The Nixon Administration in United States announces a halt to residential use of the pesticide DDT as part of a total phase-out.

1975: General Francisco Franco dies. Two days later Alfonso XIII’s grandson, Juan Carlos, becomes King of Spain.

1977: Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat becomes the first Arab leader to speak before the Israeli Parliament, telling them Egypt seeks peace.

1980: A special tribunal begins the two-month trial of “the Gang of Four”, led by Jiang Qing, Chairman Mao Tse-tung’s wife, for masterminding the 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution in China.

1990: Saddam Hussein orders another 250,000 Iraqi troops into Kuwait.

1993: Macedonian jetliner carrying 116 people crashes into mountain, only one person survives.

1997: Twenty-nine industrialised nations of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development agree to outlaw bribing of foreign officials.

2001: Colleagues identify the bodies of four international journalists forced from their cars by armed men and killed in an ambush on the road to the Afghan capital, Kabul.

2002: Turkey’s broadcasting authority authorises State radio and television to air limited programmes in the once-banned Kurdish language, a step toward meeting EU membership requirements.

2004: President Chandrika Kumaratunga declares that Sri Lanka will lift a 28-year moratorium on the death penalty after a high court judge was gunned down at his home.

2007: More than 3,000 people jailed in Pakistan under emergency rule are released, the latest sign that President Gen Pervez Musharraf was rolling back some of the harsher measures taken against his opponents.

2010: Pope Benedict XVI opens the door on the previously taboo subject of condoms as a way to fight HIV, saying male prostitutes who use condoms may be beginning to act responsibly. It’s a stunning comment for a pontiff who has blamed condoms for making the AIDS crisis worse.

2011: Spain’s opposition conservatives sweep commandingly into power and into the hot seat, as voters enduring a 21.5 per cent jobless rate and stagnant economy dump the Socialists — the third time in as many weeks Europe’s debt crisis has claimed a government.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Robert F Kennedy, American politician and US attorney general (1925-1968); Albert Kesselring German General field marshall during World War II; Edwin Powell Hubble, US astronomer (1889-1953); Chester Gould, Americn cartoonist (1900-1985); Alexandra Danilova, Russian ballerina (1903- 1997)

— AP