Today is the 340th day of 2019. There are 25 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1998: Six years after staging a bloody coup attempt, former Lieutenant Colonel Hugo Chavez is elected president of Venezuela, dealing a blow to the establishment that ruled the country for 40 years.

OTHER EVENTS

1534: Spanish conquistadors establish presence in Quito, an Inca city in the Andes.

1790: Congress moves from New York City to Philadelphia.1857: British forces recapture Cawnpore in India.

1884: Army engineers complete construction of the Washington Monument.

1906: Self-government is granted in Transvaal and Orange River colonies in what is now South Africa.

1907: The frontier between Uganda and East Africa is defined.

1916: Bucharest, the capital of Romania, falls to German troops.

1917: The Republic of Finland is proclaimed; collision between Belgian and French ammunition ships at Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, takes 1,600 lives.

1921: Britain signs peace treaty with Ireland establishing the Irish Free State, and Ireland accepts Dominion status.

1929: Women’s suffrage begins in Turkey.

1941: US President Franklin D Roosevelt appeals to Japan’s Emperor Hirohito for peace — one day before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. He also authorises the Manhattan Project, which results in the creation of the atomic bomb.

1959: UN General Assembly says Togoland should receive independence.

1966: Britain calls for UN sanctions against rebellious Rhodesia, including ban on oil shipments.

1978: A referendum approves the constitution returning Spain to a democracy.

1984: Death toll rises to 1,600 from gas leak from US-built pesticide plant in Bhopal, India.

1987: Bangladesh government dissolves Parliament amid opposition campaign to topple President Hussain Mohammad Ershad’s administration.

1990: Gen Hussain Mohammad Ershad, who ruled Bangladesh for nine years after coming to power in a coup, steps down at the height of a pro-democracy movement.

1998: Six years after staging a bloody coup attempt, former Lt Col Hugo Chavez is elected president of Venezuela, dealing a blow to the establishment that ruled the country for 40 years.

2006: After decades of dictatorship and wars, Congo swears in its first freely elected president since 1960, installing Joseph Kabila, the son of a rebel leader, who promises a new era of order.

2008: Amsterdam unveils plans to close brothels, sex shops and marijuana cafés in its ancient city centre as part of a major effort to drive organised crime out of the tourist haven.

2009: Delegates converge for the grand finale of two years of tough, sometimes bitter negotiations on a climate change treaty, as UN officials calculated that pledges offered in the last few weeks to reduce greenhouse gases put the world within reach of keeping global warming under control.

2010: A French court convicts Continental Airlines and one of its mechanics of manslaughter for setting off a chain of events that sent a supersonic Concorde crashing into a hotel outside Paris a decade ago, killing 113 people and marking the beginning of the sleek jet’s demise.

Today’s Birthdays

Joseph-Louis Gay-Lussac, French physicist and chemist (1778-1850); Joyce Kilmer, US poet (1886-1918); Ira Gershwin, US lyricist of Broadway musicals and films (1896-1983); Gunnar Myrdal, Swedish economist and sociologist, Nobel laureate (1898-1987); Alfred Eisenstaedt, US photojournalist (1898-1995); James Braddock, US boxer (1905-1974); Peter Handke, Austrian novelist and playwright (1942-); Dave Brubeck, US jazz pianist (1920-2012)

—AP