Today is the 188th day of 2021. There are 177 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

2000: Eager children around the globe grab volumes of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the boy wizard’s fourth magical adventure — a massive hit even before its publication.

OTHER EVENTS

1718: Alexis, son of Russia’s Peter the Great, dies in a Moscow fortress after being tortured on his father’s orders and questioned about a conspiracy.

1753: Act is passed for naturalisation of Jews in England.

1815: Allied forces enter Paris following Napoleon Bonaparte’s abdication.

1898: United States annexes island of Hawaii.

1937: Japanese and Chinese troops clash near Marco Polo Bridge, Beijing, an incident that leads to Sino-Japanese war.

1960: Belgium sends troops to the newly independent Congo.

1973: Iraq executes 23 people accused of attempting to overthrow government.

1987: At least 46 Hindus are killed in India in two attacks on buses by suspected Sikh terrorists.

1990: Diplomats say thousands of Albanians crowding into foreign embassies will be allowed to leave their communist homeland.

1993: Hurricane Calvin hits the Mexican mainland, leaving a trail of flooding and destruction along the Pacific Coast.

1994: Yemen’s two-month civil war ends when northern troops overrun the southern capital.

1995: After nearly four months in orbit, American astronaut Norman Thagard lands at Kennedy Space Center with seven others who took part in the first US-Russian space link-up in 20 years.

1997: Britain’s House of Lords backs a Bill that would give princesses equal rights with princes in succession to the throne.

1998: Nigeria’s most prominent political prisoner, Moshood Abiola, dies of an apparent heart attack a few days before he was expected to be released.

1999: A strike by more than 200,000 unionised truck drivers enters its third — and last day — snaring traffic throughout Argentina. The protest is against a new tax on automobiles, boats and aircraft earmarked to boost teachers’ salaries.

2001: After four days the US surrenders Air Force Sergeant Timothy Woodland, accused of rape, to Japanese authorities. He is later sentenced to 32 months in jail. US officials’ delay enraged people on Okinawa, where three American servicemen raped a 12-year-old girl in 1995.

2002: At least 34 miners die when a fire breaks out in a coal mine in the eastern Ukraine region of Donetsk.

2003: US President George W Bush’s Administration acknowledges for the first time that Bush relied on faulty intelligence when he claimed in his January State of the Union address that Iraq had sought to buy uranium from Africa.

2004: The Government announces that the US military will review the individual cases of the 595 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to determine whether they are legally held.

2005: A string of rush-hour explosions tear into at least three London subway trains and a double-decker bus in the worst attack on London since World War II, killing at least 52 people and injuring 700.

2006: Spain reports its first case of H5N1 bird flu, discovered in a wild fowl in a marshland area.

2007: A suicide truck bomber blasts a Shiite town north of Baghdad, killing more than 100 people.

2008: A suicide car bomb explodes outside the Indian Embassy in central Kabul, Afghanistan, killing 40 people.

2009: Sobbing Muslim women scuffle with riot police, and Chinese men wielding steel pipes, meat cleavers and sticks rampage through the streets of Urumqui as ethnic tensions worsened in China’s oil-rich Xinjiang territory.

2010: Scientists say ancient man ventured into northern Europe far earlier than previously thought, settling on England’s east coast more than 800,000 years ago.

2011: Thousands of fans from around the world mass in London for the premiere of the final film in the magical adventure series of the boy wizard Harry Potter.

2012: Jubilant Libyans choose a new parliament in their first nationwide vote in decades, but violence and protests in the restive east underscore the challenges ahead as the North African nation struggles to restore stability after last year’s ouster of longtime leader Moammar Gadhafi.

2013: A runaway train with oil tankers derails in Lac-Megantic in Quebec, igniting explosions and fires that destroy the downtown district and kill 47 people.

2014: Pope Francis begs forgiveness in his first meeting with Catholics abused by members of the clergy and vows to hold bishops responsible for their handling of paedophile priests.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Gustav Mahler, Austrian composer (1860-1911); Marc Chagall, Russian artist (1887-1985); Vittorio de Sica, Italian director (1901-1974); Margaret Walker, US writer (1915-1998); Shelley Duvall, US actress (1949- ); Ringo Starr, British musician (1940- )

— AP