Today is the 64th day of 2020. There are 302 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1965: Syria orders nationalisation of nine oil companies, including affiliates of two US concerns.

OTHER EVENTS

1632: Sweden’s King Gustavus II resumes his Palatinate campaign in Germany.

1681: England’s King Charles II grants a charter to William Penn for land that later becomes the US state of Pennsylvania.

1789: The Constitution of the United States goes into effect as the first Federal Congress meets in New York City.

1797: British troops under Lord Lake quell rebellion in Ulster, Ireland.

1829: An unruly crowd mobs the White House during the inaugural reception for US President Andrew Jackson.

1917: German army begins major withdrawal on Western Front in World War I.

1933: The start of US President Franklin Roosevelt’s first Administration has the first woman to serve in the Cabinet: Labour Secretary Frances Perkins.

1945: Soviet troops reach Baltic Sea in drive across German province of Pomerania.

1970: French submarine with 57 aboard is lost in Mediterranean Sea off the Riviera.

1972: Soviet Union signs agreement with Libya to jointly develop and refine Libyan oil, a pact seen as a pressure tactic against Western oil companies.

1973: Eight Black September terrorists end their occupation of Saudi Arabian Embassy in Khartoum, Sudan, after slaying three foreign diplomats.

1977: Earthquake devastates Bucharest and other towns in Romania, where death toll eventually reaches more than 1,000.

1987: US President Ronald Reagan addresses the nation on the Iran-Contra affair, acknowledging his overtures to Iran had “deteriorated” into an arms-for-hostages deal.

1994: Four Muslim extremists are convicted in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York.

1996: A suicide bomber strikes outside Tel Aviv’s biggest shopping centre, killing at least 14 people. It is the fourth bombing in Israel in nine days.

1997: Convoys of policemen and soldiers move into chaotic southern Albania, where the Government has lost control after protests that began with the failure of pyramid investment schemes.

1999: The US Marine pilot whose plane clipped off a gondola cable in the Italian Alps, killing 20 people a year earlier, is acquitted by a US military court, causing dismay in Italy.

2002: The Parliament of the Serbian province of Kosovo elects ethnic Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova as president, ending a political deadlock that delayed the formation of a government.

2003: A bomb explodes just outside Davao International Airport on the southern island of Mindanao in the Philippines, killing at least 21 people and injuring 150 others.

2004: The White House defends President George W Bush’s campaign commercials that show images from September 11, 2001. The ads anger several victims’ relatives and the International Association of Fire Fighters Union demands the ads be pulled.

2005: Flags fly at half-staff as Canadians grapple with the deadliest attack on police officers in 120 years, after four Mounties were slain during a raid on a marijuana farm in a rural western hamlet.

2006: The Arab League announces that it will open offices in Iraq for the first time since the 2003 US-led invasion, part of its efforts to help reconcile the country’s Sunni Arab, Shiite, and Kurdish communities.

2007: Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo and rebel leader Guillaume Soro sign a peace accord reuniting the country by dismantling a vast buffer zone that separated the two sides.

2008: Thousands of bus and train drivers, preschool teachers, and waterworks employees walk off their jobs in most of Germany’s 16 states in an effort to win higher pay for German public service workers.

2009: Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton swipes hard at Iran, accusing its hard-line rulers of fomenting divisions in Arab countries and promoting terrorism.

2010: Turkey, a key Muslim ally of the United States, angrily withdraws its US ambassador after a congressional committee approves a resolution branding the World War I-era killing of Armenians as a genocide.

2011: Muammar Gaddafi’s regime strikes back at its opponents with a powerful attack on the closest Opposition-held city to Tripoli and using a barrage of tear gas and live ammunition to smother new protests in the capital. At least 37 people died in fighting and in an explosion at an ammunition depot in Libya’s rebellious east.

2012: Vladimir Putin claims victory in Russia’s presidential election before tens of thousands of cheering supporters, even as the Opposition and independent observers insist the vote has been marred by widespread fraud.

2015: China announces that its official military budget will grow by 10.1 per cent in the coming year, amid unease among Beijing’s neighbours about its growing might and territorial ambitions.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Prince Henry the Navigator, Portuguese patron of explorers (1394-1460); Antonio Vivaldi, Italian composer (1648-1741); Sir Henry Raeburn, Scottish artist (1756-1823); Charles Goren, US contract bridge authority (1901-1991); Patricia Heaton, US actress (1958- ); Chaz Salvatore Bono, child of Sonny and Cher (1969- ); Catherine O’Hara, US actress (1954- ); Scott Hicks, Australian director (1953- )

— AP