Today is the 218th day of 2021. There are 147 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1945: During World War II, the US B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay drops an atomic bomb code-named “Little Boy” on Hiroshima, Japan, resulting in an estimated 140,000 deaths. (Three days later, the United States exploded a nuclear device over Nagasaki; five days after that, Imperial Japan surrendered.The world learns of the horrifying effects of radiation for years to come.)

OTHER EVENTS

1497: Genovese navigator Giovanni Caboto returns from a voyage on which he claimed Nova Scotia for his sponsor, England.

1661: Portuguese and Dutch sign treaty whereby Portugal retains Brazil and the Dutch keep Ceylon — now Sri Lanka.

1787: The Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia begins to debate the articles in a draft of the United States Constitution.

1806: Holy Roman Empire ends as Francis II formally resigns the Imperial Dignity and becomes Francis I, Emperor of Austria.

1824: Simon Bolivar defeats Spanish forces at Junin in Peru.

1825: Bolivia declares its independence from Peru.

1828: Mehmet Ali, ruler of Egypt, agrees to British demands to quit Greece.

1840: Louis Napoleon attempts uprising at Bologne in France, but fails and is later sentenced to life imprisonment.

1844: French under Duc de Joinville begin hostilities against Morocco.

1890: Convicted murderer William Kemmler is the first person executed by electric chair. He is put to death at Auburn State Prison in New York.

1896: The French Parliament votes for the annexation of Madagascar, a protectorate since the year before.

1914: Serbia and Montenegro declare war on Germany.

1926: Warner Brothers Studios premieres the first movie with sound in New York; Gertrude Ederle of New York becomes the first American woman to swim the English Channel.

1961: Soviet cosmonaut Gherman Titov becomes the second man to orbit Earth as he flew aboard Vostok 2; his call sign, “Eagle,” prompted his famous declaration: “I am Eagle!”

1962: Jamaica becomes an independent dominion within the British Commonwealth.

1965: US President Lyndon Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act.

1973: Mistaken attack by US bombers on Cambodian town of Neak Long kills and wounds hundreds. Former Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, 72, dies in exile in Spain. Entertainer Stevie Wonder is seriously injured in a car accident in North Carolina.

1977: Sir Alexander Bustamante, former prime minister of Jamaica, dies on the 15th Independence anniversary.

1978: Pope Paul VI dies at Castel Gandolfo at age 80.

1986: William J Schroeder dies after living 620 days with the “Jarvik 7” artificial heart.

1990: Pakistan’s Benazir Bhutto is ousted by the military after 20 months as prime minister.

1993: Morihiro Hosokawa, head of reformist coalition, is elected Japanese prime minister.

1994: US aircraft attack Bosnian Serbs after they take armored vehicles from a UN depot just west of Sarajevo. The vehicles are soon returned.

1995: United States opens embassy in Hanoi, Vietnam.

1997: Korean Air Flight 801 crashes into a hillside a short distance from Guam International Airport, killing 228 of the 254 aboard the Boeing 747.

1998: The World Bank approves a US$1.5-billion loan to Russia as part of a US$22.6-billion emergency rescue package designed to help the financially troubled nation restructure its economy.

2000: Some 1,400 Lithuanians identify themselves to the Government as KGB — the former Soviet secret police and intelligence agency — agents and informers. The former Soviet Union ruled Lithuania from World War II through 1991.

2003: Action film star Arnold Schwarzenegger announces that he will run as a Republican candidate to replace California Governor Gray Davis in a recall election.

2004: Battles between coalition forces and Iraqi insurgents in the Shiite holy city of Najaf kill 300 militants, the US military says, the worst fighting here since the height of a spring insurrection.

2012: Syrian Prime Minister Riad Hijab escapes to Jordan to join the rebel side becoming the highest-ranking government official to defect, emboldening the opposition to President Bashar Assad’s regime.

2014: Indirect Israeli and Palestinian negotiations over extending a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and ending a blockage of the battered territory get underway in Cairo.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Alfred Lord Tennyson, English poet (1809-1892); Alexander Fleming, British discoverer of penicillin (1881-1945); Lucille Ball, US actress (1911-1989); Robert Mitchum, US actor (1917-1997); Andy Warhol, US artist (1928-1987); Peggy and Patsy Lynn, US country singers (1964- ); M Night Shyamalan, US film director (1970- ); Charlie Haden, jazz bassist (1937-2014); Abbey Lincoln, jazz singer/actress (1930-2010)

— AP