Today is the 293rd day of 2020. There are 73 days left in the year

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1992: African National Congress President Nelson Mandela acknowledges that prisoners in congress military camps had been tortured during the 1980s and early 1990s. The camps, located in other African countries, had been training sites during the congress’s guerrilla war against the South African Government.

OTHER EVENTS

1765: The Stamp Act Congress, meeting in New York, draws up a declaration of rights and liberties.

1813: Napoleon’s forces are defeated by a combined Austrian, Prussian, Russian, and Swedish army at Leipzig, Germany, marking the end of the French Empire east of the Rhine.

1943: The foreign ministers of the United States, the Soviet Union and Britain open a conference in Moscow to discuss broad principles of cooperation.

1944: The US Navy announces black women would be allowed into Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES).

1950: United Nations forces enter Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea.

1960: The US imposes an embargo on exports to Cuba covering all commodities except medical supplies and certain food products.

1969: US Vice-President Spiro Agnew refers to anti-Vietnam War protesters “an effete corps of impudent snobs”.

1977: The supersonic Concorde aeroplane makes its first landing in New York after 19 months of delays caused by residents concerned about the aircraft’s noise.

1983: The commander of Grenada’s armed force announces that Prime Minister Maurice Bishop, who was under house arrest, has been killed by soldiers after he tried to seize army headquarters.

1987: The stock market crashes as the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunges 508 points, or 22.6 per cent in value — its biggest-ever percentage drop in decades.

1990: The Supreme Soviet of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) adopts a long-awaited plan to reform the nation’s economy.

1994: A bomb on a crowded city bus kills 20 people in Tel Aviv, Israel.

2000: A suspected Tamil Tiger suicide bomber blows himself up in Colombo, Sri Lanka. The explosion occurs minutes before President Chandrika Kumaratunga swears in a new Cabinet to cement her shaky coalition and end a week-long political crisis.

2001: US special forces begin operations on the ground in Afghanistan, opening a significant new phase of the assault against the Taliban and terrorists.

2004: Myanmar’s secretive military regime forces out its prime minister, the long-powerful General Khin Nyunt, and places him under house arrest on corruption charges.

2005: Chile’s Supreme Court strips former dictator General Augusto Pinochet of immunity from prosecution for corruption charges related to his multimillion-dollar bank accounts overseas.

2006: Suicide bombings in the south and east of Afghanistan kill a British soldier, two children and a policeman, as President Hamid Karzai calls on North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces to use caution during military operations a day after 20 civilians are killed.

2010: The technology giant says the Dead Sea Scrolls, among the world’s most important, mysterious and tightly restricted archaeological treasures, are about to get Googled.

2011: Hundreds of youths smash and loot stores in central Athens and clash with riot police during a massive anti-Government rally against painful new austerity measures that won initial parliamentary approval.

2012: A car bomb rips through Beirut, killing a top security official and seven others, shearing balconies off apartment buildings and sending bloodied residents into the streets in the most serious blast the Lebanese capital has seen in four years.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Auguste Lumiere, Frenchman credited with making the first movie (1862-1948); John Le Carre, British writer (1931- ); Jennifer Holliday, US singer (1960- ); Evander Holyfield, US heavyweight boxing champion (1962- ); John Lithgow, US actor (1945- )

— AP