Today is the 334th day of 2021. There are 31 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

2000: South and North Korean relatives, separated for half a century, are reunited in the North Korean capital Pyongyang.

OTHER EVENTS

1652: Dutch defeat English fleet off Dungeness, England.

1710: Turkey declares war on Russia.

1718: Sweden’s “warrior king” Charles XII dies at Fredrikshald in Norway after being hit by a bullet in the head. The day was later declared a holiday for Swedish nationalists.

1782: Americans and British sign preliminary peace articles in Paris, ending American Revolutionary War.

1804: US Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase goes on trial, accused of political bias. He is acquitted by the Senate.

1838: Mexico declares war on France after French occupation of Vera Cruz.

1853: Turkish fleet is destroyed by Russia off Sinope.

1918: Transylvania proclaims union with Romania.

1934: The Moroccan Nationalist movement is founded.

1939: The Soviet Union invades Finland.

1949: Chinese Communists capture the city of Chungking.

1953: A US delegate charges before the UN General Assembly in New York that Russians headed Korean prison camps where 38,000 Allied troops and Korean civilians were victims of Communist atrocities during the War.

1962: U Thant of Burma is elected UN secretary general, succeeding the late Dag Hammarskjold.

1964: Soviet Union launches spacecraft toward Mars in apparent race with US Mariner 4.

1966: The former British colony of Barbados gains independence.

1967: Aden, South Yemen and Protectorate of South Arabia gain independence from Britain.

1971: US President Richard Nixon authorises Import-Export Bank to extend credit to Romania, ending three-year ban on US Government-backed credits to Communist-bloc nations.

1975: Four Timorese parties proclaim independence of the territory and its integration with Indonesia.

1980: The Uruguayan military dictatorship loses a plebiscite to amend the constitution.

1981: The United States and the Soviet Union open negotiations in Geneva aimed at reducing nuclear weapons in Europe.

1988: Ethnic clashes between Armenians and Azerbaijanis kill 11 people in five Armenian cities.

1989: Terrorists kill West German banker Alfred Herrhausen.

1992: The European Community agrees to speed up expulsions of bogus asylum seekers and turns down an appeal by Germany to share the influx of refugees.

1993: US President Bill Clinton signs into law the Brady Bill, which requires a five-day waiting period for handgun purchases and background checks of prospective buyers.

1996: Rallying against Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, who annulled Opposition victories in local elections, 150,000 people march through the Yugoslav capital of Belgrade.

1998: The British hospital where General Augusto Pinochet is staying says he doesn’t need medical care — a blow to the Chilean ex-dictator’s plan to plead he is too ill to stand trial for extradition to Spain.

1999: The opening of a 135-nation trade gathering in Seattle is disrupted by at least 40,000 demonstrators, some of whom clash with police.

2005: For the first time, women win elected posts in Saudi Arabia, picking up two seats in a city chamber of commerce after the Government forced the body to allow businesswomen to vote and run.

2007: A new form of the deadly Ebola virus is detected in an outbreak in western Uganda that has so far killed 16 people, the World Health Organization says.

2008: Space shuttle Endeavour returns to Earth after a nearly 16-day mission to repair and upgrade the international space station.

2009: US President Barack Obama spells out a costly Afghanistan war expansion to a sceptical American public, coupling an infusion of as many as 35,000 more troops with a vow that there will be no endless US commitment.

2010: British police make 153 arrests during student demonstrations in London against proposed university tuition hikes.

2011: The central banks of the wealthiest countries, trying to prevent a debt crisis in Europe from exploding into a global panic, sweep in to shore up the world financial system by making it easier for banks to borrow American dollars

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Jonathan Swift, English satirist (1667-1745); Sir Winston Churchill, British statesman (1874-1965); Mark Twain, US author (1835-1910); Ridley Scott, British film director (1937- ); Mandy Patinkin, US actor/singer (1952- ); David Mamet, US writer/director (1947- )

— AP