Today is the 365th day of 2019. There is one day left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

2006: Saddam Hussein, 69, the shotgun-waving dictator who ruled Iraq for a quarter-century and was driven from power by a US-led war that left his country in shambles, is taken to the gallows and executed.

OTHER EVENTS

1777: Bavaria, on death of Maximillian III, passes to Charles Theodore, Elector of Palatine, igniting the War of the Bavarian Succession.

1853: Gadsden Purchase signed with Mexico to sell the southern portion of Arizona and New Mexico to the United States for $10 million.

1903: Some 600 people die in the Iroquois Theater fire in Chicago.

1958: French West African states decide to form a federation within the French community.

1988: Yugoslavia’s Premier Branko Mikulic and entire Cabinet resign following mounting criticism of how they handled the nation’s economic crisis.

1990: Albanian Jews are allowed to begin emigrating to Israel for the first time.

1993: Israel and the Vatican agree to establish full diplomatic ties.

1997: China announces stronger restrictions on the use of the Internet, aiming to curtail the use of e-mail and the World Wide Web among dissidents.

1998: The US Federal Trade Commission approves the US$53-billion merger of British Petroleum Co and Amoco Corp.

1999: A man walks into the office of Pakistan’s largest Urdu-language newspaper and confesses to killing 100 children.

2000: A passenger breaks into the cockpit of a British Airways flight and grabs the controls, sending the Boeing 747 into two violent nosedives before the crew regains control. The plane eventually lands safely.

2002: New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg signs a law banning smoking in almost all bars and restaurants in the city starting March 30, 2003.

2005: Tropical Storm Zeta forms in the eastern Atlantic Ocean. It is the 27th storm of a record-breaking hurricane season.

2010: Former Israeli President Moshe Katsav is convicted of rape, a dramatic fall from grace for a man who rose from humble beginnings to become a symbol of achievement for Jews of Middle Eastern origin.

2011: The Maldives Government said it has decided to close massage parlours and spas, following an Opposition-led religious protest last week calling for their closure. Sunni Islam is the official religion in the Maldives and practising any other faith is forbidden.

2013: Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro acknowledged that annual inflation had hit 56 per cent.

2016: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announces a slew of incentives to the poor, farmers, women and small businesses in a special new year’s address. He defended his shock decision to abolish high denomination bank notes as the window to exchange old notes closed.

2017: Colombia says it has shipped around 55 tons of ham to Venezuela after protests broke out over shortages of the traditional holiday staple.

2018: Hundreds of Iranian students hold protests for a second day calling for university officials to resign over the December 25 bus crash that killed 10.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Rudyard Kipling, English author (1865-1936); Stephen Leacock, Canadian humorist (1869-1944); Carol Reed, English film director (1906-1976); Bo Diddley, US singer/guitarist (1928-2008); Skeeter Davis, US singer (1931-2004); Tracey Ullman, British actress-singer (1959- )

— AP