Today is the 346th day of 2020. There are 20 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

2011: Former military strongman Manuel Antonio Noriega is flown home to Panama to be punished once again for crimes he committed during a career that saw him transformed from a close Cold War ally of Washington to the vilified target of a US invasion.

OTHER EVENTS

1792: France’s King Louis XVI faces charges of treason. He is convicted, and executed the following month.

1872: Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback becomes America’s first black governor in Louisiana.

1888: The French Panama Canal company fails.

1936: George VI becomes King of England following abdication of Edward VIII.

1937: Italy withdraws from the League of Nations.

1941: United States declares war against Germany and Italy in World War II.

1946: The UN International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) is established.

1972: US Apollo 17 astronauts land on the moon and begin an extensive exploration of the lunar surface.

1981: The UN Security Council chooses Javier Perez de Cuellar of Peru to be the fifth secretary general of the world body.

1990: Albania announces it will allow formation of independent political parties.

1991: Leaders of 12 European Community nations agree to establish loose federation with common foreign policy and single currency by 1999, laying the groundwork for the European Union.

1996: Shipping tycoon Tung Chee-hwa is elected the first postcolonial leader of Hong Kong.

2001: A US federal grand jury indicts Zacarias Moussaoui, a French citizen of Moroccan descent, for conspiracy in the September 11 terrorist attacks — the first indictment directly related to the attacks.

2003: A presidential panel concludes that France should outlaw Islamic head scarves in public schools to halt the burgeoning influence of Islamic fundamentalism and save the secular values that guide modern-day France. It also recommends a ban on other conspicuous religious symbols, such as Jewish skullcaps and large Christian crosses.

2005: Explosions rip through a fuel depot north of London, injuring dozens of people, blowing doors off nearby homes, and sending balls of fire and clouds of black smoke into the sky.

2007: Two truck bombs shear off the fronts of UN offices and a government building in Algeria’s capital, killing at least 31 people and wounding nearly 200 in an attack claimed by al-Qaeda in Islamic North Africa.

2008: Former Nasdaq stock market Chairman Bernard L Madoff is arrested on a securities fraud charge, accused of running a phony investment business that cost clients billions of dollars.

2009: Wealthy nations would commit to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the next decade, and the world should strive to nearly eliminate them — or at least cut them in half — by 2050 under a draft agreement circulating at the UN climate talks.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Hector Berlioz, French composer (1803-1869); Alfred de Musset, French author (1810-1857); Fiorello H LaGuardia, New York City mayor (1882-1947); Carlos Gardel, Argentine tango singer (1887- 1935); Naguib Mahfouz, Egyptian writer and Nobel laureate (1911-2007); Rita Moreno, Puerto Rican actress (1931- )

— AP