Today is 51st the day of 2020. There are 315 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1962: Astronaut John Glenn becomes the first American to orbit Earth on the Friendship 7 Mercury capsule.

OTHER EVENTS

1437: Scotland’s King James I is murdered by would-be usurpers in Scottish city of Perth.

1570: Lord Hunsdon defeats Leonard Dacre’s rebel army, ending Northern Rebellion in England.

1792: US President George Washington signs an act creating the US Post Office.

1809: Saragossa, Spain, is captured by French forces after a bloody siege; the US Supreme Court rules the power of the federal Government is greater than that of any individual state.

1631: German Protestant princes form alliance with Sweden’s King Gustavus II, setting the stage for the Swedish entry into the Thirty Years’ War.

1833: Russian ships enter Bosphorus on way to Constantinople — today’s Istanbul — to aid Turkey against Egypt.

1928: Britain recognises independence of Trans-Jordan.

1933: US House of Representatives completes congressional action on an amendment to repeal Prohibition, the ban on the manufacture, sale, or transportation of alcoholic beverages.

1942: Japanese invade island of Bali in Dutch East Indies during World War II.

1964: Morocco and Algeria sign accord to end border conflict which resulted in troop clashes.

1967: Indonesia’s President Sukarno surrenders all executive power to General Suharto, keeping only the title of president.

1975: Greek Cypriot Government calls on United Nations to fix deadline for withdrawal of 40,000 Turkish troops from that island.

1986: Russia launches the Mir space station.

1988: Rainstorm triggers floods and mudslides in Rio de Janeiro that kill 65 people and leave up to 100 elderly hospital patients missing and feared dead.

1990: England announces it will unilaterally lift ban on new investments in South Africa.

1991: Slovenia’s legislators vote overwhelmingly to initiate secession from Yugoslavia; at least 19 people die as a Chilean airliner bound for Antarctica crashes into a freezing channel.

1992: Israeli troops break through UN barricades in Lebanon to attack rocket-launching Shiite militias.

1994: NATO says that the Serb guns around Sarajevo have largely been pulled back, and threatened airstrikes will not be unleashed.

1996: General Hussein Kamel, son-in-law of President Saddam Hussein, returns to Iraq after having defected to Jordan. He is killed with his relatives a few days later.

1998: In 1998, Tara Lipinski of the US wins the ladies’ figure skating gold medal at the Nagano Olympics while fellow American Michelle Kwan wins the silver; Chen Lu of China wins the bronze.

1999: Atal Bihari Vajpayee becomes the first Indian prime minister to go to Pakistan in 10 years when he rides the first commercial bus service between the two countries in 51 years.

2002: A fire breaks out on a crowded train travelling from Cairo to Luxor in southern Egypt, killing 373 people and injuring 60 in the worst train disaster in Egyptian history.

2003: A fire sparked by heavy-metal band Great White’s pyrotechnic display kills 100 people and injures more than 180 others at a nightclub in West Warwick, Rhode Island.

2004: A police commission audit says that Atlanta under-reported crimes for years to help land the 1996 Olympics and pump up tourism.

2005: The Irish Government identifies three top Sinn Fein figures — including leader Gerry Adams — as members of the Irish Republican Army command.

2008: Space shuttle Atlantis and its crew return to Earth, wrapping up a five-million-mile (eight million-kilometre) journey highlighted by the successful delivery of a new European lab to the international space station.

2009: Israeli President Shimon Peres chooses Benjamin Netanyahu to form new Government.

2011: Libyan protesters defy a fierce crackdown by Moammar Gadhafi’s regime, returning to a square outside a court building in the flashpoint city of Benghazi to demand the overthrow of the long-time ruler.

2013: The Barack Obama Administration in the US announces a broad new effort to fight the growing theft of American trade secrets following fresh evidence linking cyberstealing to China’s military. Former US Representative Jesse Jackson Jr, D-Ill, enters a guilty plea in federal court to criminal charges that he had engaged in a scheme to spend $750,000 in campaign funds on personal items; his wife, Sandra Jackson, pleads guilty to filing false joint federal income tax returns.

2014: Protesters advance on police lines in the heart of Kiev, prompting government snipers to shoot back and kill scores of people in Ukraine’s deadliest day since the break-up of the Soviet Union.

2017: US President Donald Trump taps Army Lieutenant General H R McMaster as his new national security adviser, replacing the ousted Michael Flynn. Thousands of demonstrators turn out across the US to challenge Donald Trump in a Presidents’ Day protest dubbed ‘Not My President’s Day’.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Sir William Cornwallis, English admiral (1744-1819); Honore Daumier, French artist (1808-1879); Lucien Pissarro, French artist (1863-1944); Robert Altman, US director (1925-2006); Sidney Poitier, US actor (1927- ); Peter Strauss, US actor (1947- ); Cindy Crawford, US model (1966- ); Lili Taylor, US actress (1967- )

— AP