Today is the 47th day of 2021. There are 318 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1959: Fidel Castro becomes premier of Cuba after the overthrow of Fulgencio Batista. 

OTHER EVENTS

1804: US Marines slip into Tripoli harbour and burn US Navy frigate Philadelphia, which had been captured by pirates.

1808: France invades Spain.

1862: General Ulysses Grant demands the Confederate forces’ unconditional surrender during America’s Civil War. Some 14,000 troops surrender.

1871: Franco-Prussian War ends in defeat for France.

1873: Republic is proclaimed in Spain, but only lasts two years.

1918: England’s port of Dover is bombarded by German submarines in World War I.

1923: The burial chamber of King Tutankhamen’s recently unearthed tomb is unsealed in Egypt.

1933: Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia, fearing German threats, reorganise Little Entente with permanent council.

1936: Left-wing Popular Front wins elections in Spain. Reaction from the military later leads to Spanish Civil War.

1942: German submarines fire upon oil refineries in Aruba, Dutch West Indies, during World War II.

1953: South Africa institutes emergency powers under Public Safety Bill.

1962: Anti-government riots break out in Georgetown, British Guiana.

1977: Anglican Archbishop of Uganda and two government ministers are arrested in alleged plot to overthrow Ugandan President Idi Amin.

1983: “Ash Wednesday” bushfires in Victoria and South Australia claim more than 70 lives.

1993: Russian President Boris Yeltsin and his rival, Parliament Speaker Ruslan Khasbulatov, agree to negotiate a separation of powers.

1994: Greece declares a unilateral embargo on the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia in a conflict over the use of the name Macedonia.

1995: Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin agrees to gradually lift the closure of the West Bank and Gaza Strip and permit 15,000 Palestinian workers to return to their jobs in Israel.

1997: Rebel leader Laurent Kabila, after a plea from the United Nations, agrees to delay an attack on Zaire’s largest refugee camp. The camp in Tingi-Tingi is attacked two weeks later, scattering 170,000 Rwandans.

1999: Kurds occupy and take hostages at the Greek embassies in several European countries to protest Kurd leader Abdullah Ocalan’s capture by Turkish authorities after he left the Greek Embassy in Kenya.

2004: Kuwait’s Parliament decides to investigate charges that a Kuwaiti supplier to a subsidiary of US conglomerate Halliburton charged too much for fuel deliveries to Iraq after the US-led war topples Saddam Hussein.

2006: Haitians celebrate as word quickly spreads that Rene Preval, a former president who is hugely popular among the poor, is declared the winner of the presidential election.

2009: France’s top judicial body formally recognises the nation’s role in deporting Jews to Nazi death camps during the Holocaust, but effectively rules out any more reparations for the deportees or their families.

2011: Israel’s foreign minister claims that Iran is about to send two warships through the Suez Canal for the first time in years, but he offers no evidence. The Egyptian authority that runs the canal denies it.

2013: Reeva Steenkamp’s last wish for her family before she is shot dead at boyfriend Oscar Pistorious’s home is for them to watch her in a reality TV show that goes on the air in South Africa, two days after her killing. Billy Hunter is ousted as executive director of the National Basketball Players Association by NBA players. Tony Sheridan, 72, a British singer who performed with the Beatles during their early years in Germany, dies in Hamburg.

2017: In the first full-length news conference of his presidency, Donald Trump denounces what he calls the “criminal” leaks that took down his top national security adviser, Michael Flynn. President Trump names Alexander Acosta as his new choice for labour secretary, a day after Andrew Puzder abruptly withdrew. Immigrants around the US stay home from work and school to demonstrate how important they are to America’s economy, and many businesses close in solidarity. 

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Nicolaus Copernicus, Polish astronomer, (1473-1543); G M Travelyan, British historian (1876-1964); John Schlesinger, English film director (1926-2003); Kim Jong Il, North Korean leader (1942-2011); James Ingram, US singer (1952-2019); Ice-T, US actor/rapper (1958- ); Andy Taylor, guitarist (1961- )

— AP