Today is the 246th day of 2021. There are 119 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT:

1939: Britain, France, Australia and New Zealand declare war on Germany, two days after the Nazi invasion of Poland; in a radio address, Britain’s King George VI says, “With God’s help, we shall prevail.” The same day, a German U-boat torpedoes and sinks the British liner SS Athenia some 250 miles off the Irish coast, killing more than 100 out of the 1,400 or so people on board.

OTHER EVENTS:

1189: England’s King Richard I is crowned in Westminster Abbey.

1497: Manuel, king of Portugal, marries Isabella of Spain. One of the conditions for the marriage is that he expel all Jews from Portugal.

1609: English explorer Henry Hudson and his crew aboard the Half Moon enter present-day New York Harbour and begin sailing up the river that now bears his name. (They reach present-day Albany before turning back.)

1658: Oliver Cromwell, the Lord Protector of England, dies in London; his son, Richard, succeeds him.

1783: Representatives of the United States and Britain sign the Treaty of Paris, which officially ends the Revolutionary War.

1791: French constitution is passed by National Assembly, making France a constitutional monarchy.

1861: During the Civil War, Confederate forces invade the border state of Kentucky, which had declared its neutrality in the conflict.

1868: The Japanese city of Edo is renamed Tokyo.

1916: The first German Zeppelin bomber is shot down over England.

1923: The United States and Mexico resume diplomatic relations.

1943: Allied forces invade Italy during World War II, the same day Italian officials sign a secret armistice with the allies.

1945: Singapore is returned to British control after being occupied by the Japanese since 1942.

1951: The television soap opera Search for Tomorrow makes its debut on CBS .

1962: Poet E E Cummings dies in North Conway, NH, at age 67.

1967: Nguyen Van Thieu (nwen van too) is elected president of South Vietnam under a new constitution.

1970: Legendary football coach Vince Lombardi, 57, dies in Washington, DC.

1971: Oil state of Qatar gains independence from Britain.

1972: American swimmer Mark Spitz wins the sixth of his seven gold medals at the Munich Olympics as he places first in the 100-metre freestyle.

1976: America’s Viking 2 lander touches down on Mars to take the first close-up, colour photographs of the red planet’s surface.

1978: Pope John Paul I is installed as the 264th pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church.

1981: US Coast Guardsmen and federal agents seize 20 tons of Colombian marijuana and arrest 33 people in several raids on Long Island, New York, and offshore.

1989: Thousands of blacks march and bathe at “whites only” beaches in nationwide defiance campaign in South Africa. A Cubana de Aviacion jetliner crashes after take-off in Havana, killing all 126 aboard and 45 people on the ground.

1990: Russian President Boris Yeltsin unveils plan for Soviet republics to take control of their own economies.

1995: The online auction site eBay is founded in San Jose, California, by Pierre Omidyar under the name AuctionWeb . A French airplane is hijacked and forced to land at Geneva’s airport. Police overpower the lone hijacker minutes after he releases all 279 passengers.

1996: US President Bill Clinton unleashes cruise missiles at military targets in southern Iraq twice to punish Saddam Hussein for attacking Kurds in a UN-designated safe zone in northern Iraq.

1997: A Vietnam Airlines jet crashes at Phnom Penh, Cambodia, airport, killing 65 people.

1999: A French judge closes a two-year inquiry into the car crash that killed Princess Diana, dismissing all charges against nine photographers and a press motorcyclist, and concluding the accident was caused by an inebriated driver.

2000: Russian President Vladimir Putin debuts on the world stage at the UN Millennium Summit in an effort to restore Russia’s clout and develop new partners.

2002: Defence Secretary Donald H Rumsfeld says the Bush administration had secret information supporting its claims that Saddam Hussein was close to developing nuclear weapons.

2003: North Korea’s parliament, the Supreme People’s Assembly, votes unanimously to re-elect the country’s leader, Kim Jong Il, to a new five-year-term as chairman of the National Defence Commission. Paul Hill, a former minister who said he murdered an abortion doctor and his bodyguard to save the lives of unborn babies, is executed in Florida by injection, becoming the first person put to death in the United States for anti-abortion violence.

2005: More than 100 supporters of Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez march through Caracas to demand justice against American religious broadcaster Pat Robertson for suggesting their president should be killed. Millionaire adventurer Steve Fossett, 63, goes missing after taking off in a single-engine plane in western Nevada. (The wreckage of the plane and traces of his remains are found more than a year later.) Panama blasts away part of a hillside next to the canal, marking the start of the waterway’s biggest expansion since it opened in 1914. Jerry Lewis raises nearly $64 million during his annual Labor Day Telethon.

2006: Europe’s first spacecraft to the moon smashes into a volcanic plain as planned, signalling the end of a successful mission to test a new propulsion system and navigation technology for flights to other planets.

2008: Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, John McCain’s choice of running mate, rouses delegates at the Republican National Convention in St Paul, Minnesota, as she belittles Democrat Barack Obama and praises the GOP nominee. Thousands of New Orleans residents who had fled Hurricane Gustav force the city to reluctantly open its doors, while President George W Bush returns to the scene to show that the Government had turned a corner since its bungled response to Katrina. Baseball’s first use of instant replay backs an onfield call of a home run for Alex Rodriguez during the ninth inning of a New York Yankees game against the Tampa Bay Rays. (The Yankees win the game, 8-4.)

2011: Former International Monetary Fund leader Dominique Strauss-Kahn heads back to his native France, leaving the United States behind after the collapse of a sensational sexual assault case that cost him his job and possibly his French presidential ambitions.

2012: American actor Michael Clarke Duncan, best known for his breakout role as John Coffey in The Green Mile (1999), dies in Los Angeles from complications following a heart attack. He is 54 years old.

2013: Microsoft’s acquisition of Nokia’s troubled smartphone business represents a daring $7.2-billion attempt by the software giant and once-influential cellphone maker to catch up with the mobile computing revolution that threatens to leave them in the technological dust. Ariel Castro, who’d held three women captive in his Cleveland home for nearly a decade before one escaped and alerted authorities, is found hanged in his prison cell, his death is ruled a suicide. Former NBA star Dennis Rodman arrives in Pyongyang for his second visit to North Korea.

2017: North Korea carries out its sixth and strongest nuclear test, detonating what it says is a hydrogen bomb. Walter Becker, co-founder of the 1970s rock group Steely Dan, dies at the age of 67.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Charlie Sheen, US actor (1965- ); Jennifer Paige, US singer-songwriter (1973- ); Redfoo, dance-rock musician (1974- ); Nichole Hiltz, US actress (1978- ); Christine Woods, US actress (1983 -); Garrett Hedlund, US actor and model (1984- ); Shaun White, Olympic gold medal snowboarder (1986- ); August Alsina, hip hop artiste/singer (1992- )

— AP