Today is the 173rd day of 2021. There are 192 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

2010: After a month-long manhunt, accused Jamaican strongman Christopher “Dudus” Coke is apprehended by police on Nelson Mandela Highway in St Catherine. Coke, who is being driven by Reverend Al Miller, was reportedly on his way to the US Embassy in Kingston to hand himself over to American authorities, who have requested his extradition.

OTHER EVENTS

1611: English explorer Henry Hudson, his son and several other people are set adrift in present-day Hudson Bay by mutineers aboard the Discovery; their fate remains unknown.

1815: Napoleon Bonaparte abdicates for a second time as Emperor of the French.

1870: The United States Department of Justice is created.

1911: Britain’s King George V is crowned at Westminster Abbey.

1937: Joe Louis begins his reign as world heavyweight boxing champion by knocking out Jim Braddock in the eighth round of their fight in Chicago. (A year later on this date, Louis knocked out Max Schmeling in the first round of their rematch at Yankee Stadium.)

1940: During World War II, Adolf Hitler gains a stunning victory as France was forced to sign an armistice eight days after German forces overran Paris.

1941: Germany invades the Soviet Union.

1944: President Franklin D Roosevelt signs the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, more popularly known as the ‘GI Bill of Rights’.

1945: The World War II battle for Okinawa ends with an allied victory.

1959: The Swedish film Wild Strawberries, written and directed by Ingmar Bergman, opens in New York.

1965: Movie producer David O Selznick (Gone With The Wind) dies in Los Angeles at age 63.

1969: Southern Yemen’s president, As Shaabi, is overthrown and replaced by five-man presidential council.

1973: Skylab 1 astronauts return safely to Earth after record 28 days aboard first US orbiting space station.

1977: John N Mitchell becomes the first former US Attorney General to go to prison as he began serving a sentence for his role in the Watergate cover-up. (He was released 19 months later.)

1984: The British airline Virgin Atlantic begins operations.

1990: Freed South African anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela addresses the United Nations during trip to New York.

1994: The World Wildlife Federation announces the discovery of the Vu Quang ox, a deer-like animal in Vietnam and only the seventh larget land mammal discovered since 1900.

1995: Facing a major political crisis, Russian President Boris Yeltsin threatens to disband Parliament if they vote to remove his Cabinet. The Parliament later backs down. The docudrama Apollo 13, starring Tom Hanks and directed by Ron Howard, has its world premiere.

2001: Shattering an 11-day ceasefire, Government troops attack ethnic Albanian rebels with tanks and helicopter gunships, threatening talks aimed at averting civil war.

2002: Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad shocks Malaysia with the sudden announcement of his resignation after 21 years in office. He steps down on October 25, 2003.

2004: The US announces it will transfer legal custody of Saddam Hussein and other top prisoners to Iraqi authorities as soon as Iraqi courts issue the necessary warrants.

2005: Federal drug agents launch a wide-ranging crackdown on medical marijuana providers in northern California.

2006: Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas kiss and embrace in the first meeting between Israeli and Palestinian leaders in more than a year. Olmert also makes a rare apology for Palestinian civilian deaths in recent Israeli airstrikes.

2007: North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and US-led coalition forces kill about 60 insurgents along the Afghan-Pakistan border in what is described as the largest insurgent formation crossing the border region in six months.

2008: The head of the UN refugee agency in Somalia’s capital is abducted from his home, the latest in a string of kidnappings in this chaotic African nation. Zimbabwe’s Opposition Leader Morgan Tsvangirai withdraws from a presidential run-off against Robert Mugabe.

2009: A US judge orders a Guantanamo Bay detainee from Syria released after chastising prosecutors for claiming a man tortured, imprisoned and abandoned by al-Qaeda and the Taliban could still be working with them.

2010: Twenty-first century laser technology opens a window into the early days of the Catholic Church, guiding researchers through the dank, musty catacombs beneath Rome to a startling find: the first known icons of the apostles Peter and Paul. South Africa becomes the first host nation not to advance in 80 years of World Cup play.

2012: Ex-Penn State Assistant Coach Jerry Sandusky is convicted by a jury in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, on 45 counts of sexually assaulting 10 boys over 15 years. (Sandusky is appealing a 30- to 60-year state prison sentence.)

2013: Islamic militants disguised as policemen kill 10 foreign climbers and a Pakistani guide in a brazen overnight raid at the base camp of Nanga Parbat, saying it was to avenge the death of their deputy leader in a U drone strike.

2014: President Barack Obama, in a recorded interview aired on CBS’s Face the Nation, says that al-Qaeda-inspired militants who had violently seized territory in Iraq could grow in power and destabilise other countries in the region.

2017: An online conspiracy theory dubbed “pizzagate” ends with real-world consequences as a North Carolina man is sentenced to four years in prison for firing an assault rifle inside Comet Ping Pong, a Washington, DC, pizza restaurant. California officials deny parole for convicted killer Patricia Krenwinkel, a follower of cult leader Charles Manson, for the 1969 slayings of pregnant actress Sharon Tate and four other people.

Today’s Birthdays

Giuseppe Mazzini, Italian nationalist leader (1805-1872); H Rider Haggard, British writer (1856-1925); Erich Maria Remarque, German writer (1898-1970); Billy Wilder, Austrian-born film director (1906-2002); Ed Bradley, CBS correspondent (1941-2006); Kris Kristofferson, US country singer/actor (1936- ); Meryl Streep, US actress (1949- ); Cyndi Lauper, US singer (1953- ); Dan Brown, US author (1964- )

— AP/Jamaica Observer