Today is the 244th day of 2021. There are 121 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1957: The worst railway disaster in Jamaica’s history, known as the Kendal crash, takes place.

OTHER EVENTS

1494: France’s King Charles VIII invades Italy to claim throne of Naples.

1674: William of Orange takes Grave, Belgium, but is unable to invade France.

1706: British successfully defends Charleston, South Carolina, against French and Spanish.

1879: Britain signs peace treaty with Zulus in South Africa.

1905: The provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta enter into the confederation of Canada.

1923: The Great Kanto Earthquake shakes the Tokyo metropolitan area, killing more than 142,000 people.

1939: Germany invades Poland, starting World War II.

1942: A federal judge in Sacramento, California, upholds the wartime detention of Japanese Americans and nationals.

1945: Japan surrenders aboard US battleship Missouri at end of World War II.

1958: A British soldier is killed in Cyprus by Greek Cypriot rebels fighting against a British plan for partnership between Greek and Turkish Cypriots.

1961: United Nations breaks off relations with the Katanga Government in Congo, as heavy fighting in Elizabethville and Jadotville result from a UN attempt to arrest members of the Government.

1962: Singapore votes to join Federation of Malaysia.

1968: Relief officials in Iran say more than 8,000 people are known to have perished in series of earthquakes.

1969: A Libyan Arab Republic is proclaimed as the army stages a coup, deposing the monarchy and bringing Moammar Gadhafi into power.

1971: Gulf State of Qatar declares independence from Britain.

1972: American Bobby Fischer wins the international chess crown in Reykjavik, Iceland, defeating Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union.

1979: US space probe Pioneer 11 becomes the first man-made object to reach Saturn, passing through the ring plane within 21,000 kilometres (13,000 miles) of Saturn’s atmosphere.

1983: A Korean Air Lines Boeing 747 is shot down by a Soviet jet fighter after the airliner enters Soviet air space, killing 269 people.

1990: Two Germanys sign a treaty that provides the blueprint for merging the countries.

1992: France joins United States and British allies in enforcing the no-fly zone in southern Iraq.

1993: Bosnia’s Government rejects a plan to end 17 months of ethnic warfare and peace talks collapse.

1994: San Francisco Superior Court jury awards a former secretary at Baker & McKenzie, the world’s largest law firm, a record US$7.1 million in punitive damages in a sexual harassment case against the firm.

1996: Helmer Herrera Buitrago, a reputed leader of Colombia’s Cali drug cartel, surrenders to authorities. He is the last of seven men believed to have been leaders of the cartel.

1998: Vietnam’s best-known dissident, Doan Viet Hoat, is freed as part of an amnesty for 5,219 inmates to mark Vietnam’s National Day. He is immediately sent into exile in Thailand.

2001: Forty-four people are killed in one of Tokyo’s worst fires when an explosion and blaze rip through a crowded gambling parlour and bar in the capital’s most popular late-night entertainment area.

2003: A three-member Israeli government commission issues a landmark report that found widespread official discrimination against the country’s Arab citizens.

2005: A Hong Kong jury convicts an American housewife of the murder of her wealthy investment banker husband by drugging him with a milkshake laced with sedatives and beating him to death in the couple’s luxury apartment.

2006: An Iranian passenger plane in the north-eastern city of Mashhad skids off the runway and rakes its wing along the ground, sparking a fire that kills 29 of the 148 people.

2007: More than two dozen Colombian prisoners arrested three years ago in an alleged plot against President Hugo Chavez are freed in a goodwill gesture Chavez hopes will help facilitate a prisoner exchange in Colombia.

2008: American forces hand over security responsibility to the Iraqis in a province that the US once feared was lost — a sign of the stunning reversal of fortunes since local Sunnis turned against al-Qaeda in Iraq.

2009: Legendary reggae musican and producer Wycliffe “Steely” Johnson dies. Libya stages a lavish spectacle, parading white-robed horsemen and gold-turbaned dancers as jets streaked overhead to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the coup that brought Moammar Gadhafi to power in the oil-rich nation.

2010: US President Barack Obama convenes the first direct Israeli-Palestinian talks in two years, challenging Mideast leaders to seize a fleeting opportunity to settle their differences and deliver peace to a region haunted by decades of hostility.

2011: World leaders line up behind Libya’s new de facto Administration and a United Nations-led effort to stabilise the country after decades under Moammar Gadhafi’s rule.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Engelbert Humperdinck, German composer (1854-1921); Edgar Rice Burroughs, US novelist (1875-1950); Rocky Marciano, US boxer (1923-1969); Lily Tomlin, US actress/comedian (1939- ); Gloria Estefan, Cuban-American singer (1957- ); Alton Ellis, Jamaican singer-songwriter and the “Godfather of Rocksteady” (1938-2008)

— AP/Jamaica Observer