Today is the 213rd day of 2020. There are 153 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

2011: Syrian security forces backed by tanks and snipers launch a ferocious assault on defiant cities and towns, killing at least 70 people and possibly many more as the regime raced to crush dissent ahead of Ramadan.

OTHER EVENTS

1498: During his third voyage to the Western Hemisphere, Christopher Columbus arrives at the island of Trinidad.

1658: Aurangzeb is proclaimed mogul emperor in India.

1812: Venezuelan Republic falls to Spanish forces, and Francisco de Miranda is arrested.

1919: Germany adopts Weimar Constitution.

1926: Afghanistan signs non-aggression pact with Soviet Union.

1944: US troops break through the German lines around the Normandy beach head, opening the way to liberating the rest of France.

1956: Britain and West Germany sign 10-year agreement on nuclear cooperation.

1962: Britain agrees to establish wider Malaysian federation.

1964: US Ranger 7 spacecraft transmits to Earth first close-up pictures of the moon.

1971: Two US Apollo 15 astronauts begin three days of moon exploration in an electric car.

1978: Gunman shoots his way into Iraqi embassy in Paris and holds hostages for several hours before surrendering to French police.

1980: Eleven people are executed in Tehran, Iran, after being convicted of participating in an attempted anti-government coup earlier in the month. Ten of them were members of the armed forces.

1986: Britain’s Cabinet unanimously supports Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s resistance to stiff sanctions against South Africa.

1988: Pier jammed with thousands of festival travellers collapses at ferry terminal in north-west Malaysia, killing at least 30 people and injuring about 370.

1990: US Government panel approves use of gene therapy for first time in treatment of human disease.

1991: US President George Bush and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev sign a long-range nuclear weapons reduction pact at Moscow summit.

1993: Truce ends week-long Israeli offensive against guerrillas in southern Lebanon that killed 140 people and sent 500,000 fleeing north.

1994: United Nations Security Council approves possible US-led invasion of Haiti.

1997: As Israelis bury the 13 dead from the worst terrorist bombing in more than a year, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatens to send troops into the autonomous Palestinian areas.

1998: South Africa ends the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s public exploration of apartheid’s horrors after two years of hearings that laid bare decades of massacres, beatings and torture.

1999: Two years after devastating earthquakes, 17th-century church of St Francis of Assisi reopens in central Italy.

2002: US Senate Foreign Relations Committee holds hearings on US plans to attack Iraq and oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

2003: The Vatican issues a 12-page document strongly urging Roman Catholic lawmakers worldwide to reject legislation sanctioning same-sex civil unions and adoption rights.

2004: World Trade Organization members approve a plan to end export subsidies on farm products and cut import duties across the world, a key step toward a comprehensive global accord that has been discussed since 2001, trade officials say.

2005: Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora visits Syria in an attempt to repair relations damaged after Damascus was forced to end its 29-year military presence in Lebanon.

2006: The UN Security Council passes a resolution giving Iran one month to suspend uranium enrichment or face the threat of economic and diplomatic sanctions.

2007: Deployment of British troops to support Northern Ireland police, codenamed Operation Banner, officially ends after 38 years.

2008: Haitian lawmakers ratify Michele Pierre-Louis to be the country’s prime minister, ending more than three months of political bickering and deadlock in Parliament.

2009: A string of bombings targets Shiite worshippers in the Baghdad area, killing at least 29 people in an apparently coordinated attack against followers of an anti-US cleric who were blamed for some of Iraq’s worst sectarian violence.

2010: The death toll in the massive flooding in Pakistan surges past 800 as floodwaters receded in the hard-hit north-west. The threat of disease looms as some evacuees arrive in camps with fever, diarrhoea and skin problems.

2012: New Delhi’s metro shut down and hundreds of coal miners were trapped underground after three Indian electric grids collapse in a cascade, cutting power to 620 million people in the world’s biggest blackout.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Augustus, leader of Protestant Germany (1526-1586); John Ericsson, Swedish-born inventor (1803-1889); Milton Friedman, US economist (1912-2006); Henri Brisson, French statesman (1835-1912); Primo Levi, Italian writer/chemist (1919-1987); Whitney Young, US civil rights leader (1921-1971); Wesley Snipes, US actor (1962- ); J K Rowling, British author of Harry Potter books (1965- ); Dean Cain, US actor (1966- )

— AP