Today is the 25th day of 2021. There are 340 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HGHLIGHTS

1994: Without admitting guilt, Michael Jackson settles a lawsuit that said he molested a young boy. Terms of the settlement leave the boy “very happy”, the youngster’s attorney said.

OTHER EVENTS

1533: England’s King Henry VIII secretly marries his second wife, Anne Boleyn, who later gives birth to Elizabeth I.

1579: Union of Utrecht is signed by Holland, Zealand, Utrecht, Celderland, Friesland, Croningen and Overyssel, marking foundation of Dutch Republic.

1802: France’s Napoleon Bonaparte becomes president of the Italian Republic.

1831: Polish Diet proclaims independence of Poland, dethrones Nicholas, and deposes the Romanovs.

1890: The United Mine Workers of America is founded; writer Nellie Bly completes her trip around the world in 72 days.

1915: The inventor of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell, inaugurates US transcontinental telephone service.

1942: Thailand, allied to Japan, declares war on Britain and the United States.

1959: Britain signs trade pact with East Germany; American Airlines opens the jet age in the United States with the first scheduled transcontinental flight of a Boeing 707.

1961: US President John F Kennedy holds the first presidential news conference carried live on radio and television.

1962: African heads of state of Monrovia Group, which includes Liberia, Togo, Nigeria and Cameroon, issue charter for pan-African cooperation.

1971: Charles Manson and three female followers are convicted in Los Angeles of murder and conspiracy in the 1969 slayings of seven people, including actress Sharon Tate.

1975: Sheik Mujibur Rahman abolishes parliamentary rule in Bangladesh and assumes absolute powers as president.

1981: The 52 Americans held hostage by Iran for 444 days return home.

1989: Cambodia’s Premier Hun Sen rejects proposal for international peacekeeping force in his country.

1991: Leaders of rival Yugoslav republics Serbia and Croatia meet in effort to defuse tensions there.

1992: Russian President Boris Yeltsin says Russia will stop targeting US cities with nuclear missiles.

1993: Two French UN peacekeepers are killed and three wounded as Serb-Croat clashes rage on in southern Croatia.

1995: Jews from around the world return to Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Nazis’ biggest death complex, where 1.5 million people were killed before it was liberated 50 years ago.

1996: The leading Nicaraguan presidential candidate, Arnoldo Aleman, narrowly escapes an assassination attempt that kills a bodyguard.

1997: A cyclone sweeps across the island nation of Madagascar, spawning floods that leave 100 people missing and thousands homeless.

1998: The pope holds a sermon on the virtues of democracy in Havana, Cuba, with dictator Fidel Castro in the audience.

1999: An earthquake devastates a coffee-growing region in Colombia, killing at least 940 people and leaving hundreds of thousands homeless.

2001: Israel and the Palestinians have made good progress in drawing the borders of a future Palestinian state, negotiators announce as both sides prepare to resume talks in an Egyptian resort following a time out called by Israel despite a tight deadline.

2002: India successfully test-fires an intermediate-range ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. The test is denounced as a provocation by Pakistan, which has been locked in a border standoff with India for more than a month.

2005: Outspoken former communist-era government spokesperson Jerzy Urban is convicted of libel and fined for insulting the Polish-born Pope John Paul II in his satirical magazine. The result shows the Polish “justice system is overly influenced by religion,” says Urban.

2006: Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians crowd polling stations in their first parliamentary elections in a decade. The vote results in a stunning victory for Islamic radicals when Hamas emerges as the winner.

2007: Russian President Vladimir Putin offers to build four new nuclear reactors for energy-starved India, cementing his country’s traditional role as India’s main nuclear benefactor.

2008: A car bomb rips through eastern Beirut, killing Lebanon’s top anti-terrorism investigator who was probing assassinations of prominent anti-Syrian figures. Three others die in the blast.

2009: Sri Lankan Government captures rebels’ last major stronghold of Mullaittivu, Sri Lanka.

2010: Suicide bombers strike in quick succession at three Baghdad hotels favoured by Western journalists in well-planned assaults that kill at least 37 people and wound more than 100.

2011: Prime Minister Vladimir Putin vows revenge for the suicide bombing that killed 35 people at a Moscow airport — a familiar tough-on-terrorism stance that has underpinned his power but also led to a rising number of deadly attacks in Russia.

2017: President Donald Trump moves aggressively to tighten the nation’s immigration controls, signing executive actions to jumpstart construction of his promised US-Mexico border wall and cut federal grants for immigrant-protecting “sanctuary cities”. The Dow Jones industrial average closed above 20,000 points for the first time, ending the day at 20,068, two months after the index crossed 19,000 points. Death claims actress Mary Tyler Moore at age 80 and actor John Hurt at age 77.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Edmund Campion, English Jesuit (1540-1581); Witold Lutoslawski, modern Polish composer and conductor (1913-1994); Robert Burns, Scottish poet (1759-1796); W Somerset Maugham, English author (1874-1965); Virginia Wolff, English author (1882-1941); Dinah Manoff, US actress (1958- ); Alicia Keys, US R&B singer (1981- ); Etta James, US blues singer (1938-2012)

— AP