Today is the 76th day of 2022. There are 289 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1969: Golda Meir becomes prime minister of Israel.

OTHER EVENTS

1229: Holy Roman Emperor Fredrick II, at the head of the Sixth Crusade, enters Jerusalem after gaining the city from the Muslims by treaty.

1328: Scotland wins its independence from England.

1649: England’s Parliament abolishes House of Lords.

1848: Revolution under Daniele Manin begins in Venice, Italy.

1860: Second Maori War breaks out in New Zealand.

1861: The Kingdom of Italy is proclaimed by a parliament assembled in Turin, but Venice and Rome remain outside the power of King Victor Emmanuel.

1888: Britain establishes protectorate over Sarawak on Borneo.

1921: Poland’s Constitution is established.

1948: Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg sign Brussels Treaty for 50-year alliance against armed attack in Europe, and economic, social and military cooperation.

1962: Soviet Union accuses United States of fighting “undeclared war” in Vietnam and demands removal of American military forces there.

1973: Cambodian Air Force officer steals plane and bombs presidential palace in Phnom Penh, missing President Lon Nol, but killing at least 20 people.

1977: Angolan troops invading Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) take important copper-mining centre of Kolwezi.

1990: Lithuania rejects a Soviet deadline to renounce its independence and calls on the Western powers to support it.

1991: Majority of Soviet voters favour preserving the union, according to referendum.

1992: White voters in referendum overwhelmingly support reforms toward ending apartheid in South Africa.

1994: Serbs and Muslims sign an agreement to ease the stranglehold on Bosnian capital of Sarajevo.

1995: The Azerbaijani army smashes a two-day rebellion by mutinous police in a fierce battle in Northern Baku.

1997: The Italian coast guard rescues 900 Albanians from a sinking gunboat off Brindisi, Italy.

1998: Catholics hold the first St Patrick’s Day in the religiously divided city of Belfast.

2000: Some 500 members of a doomsday cult die in a church fire in a remote part of south-western Uganda. After the inferno, mass graves containing 400 more corpses are discovered around cult leaders’ homes.

2002: A grenade attack at a Protestant church near the US Embassy in the heavily guarded diplomatic enclave in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, kills five worshippers and wounds 40.

2004: A car bomb shatters a five-storey hotel housing foreigners in central Baghdad, killing 27 people just days before the anniversary of the start of the Iraq war.

2009: Pope Benedict XVI says condoms are not the answer to the AIDS epidemic in Africa and can make the problem worse, setting off criticism as he begins a week-long trip to the continent where some 22 million people are living with HIV.

2011: The UN Security Council approves a resolution to impose a no-fly zone over Libya and authorise “all necessary measures” to protect civilians from attacks by Moammar Gadhafi’s forces.

2012: Two suicide bombers detonate cars packed with explosives in near-simultaneous attacks on heavily guarded intelligence and security buildings in the Syrian capital, Damascus, killing at least 27 people.

2013: A freed Palestinian prisoner is given a hero’s welcome in the Gaza Strip after ending his hunger strike in an Israeli jail and agreeing to a plea bargain that will confine him to the Hamas-run territory for the next 10 years.

2014: Russian President Vladimir Putin, ignoring tough sanctions, recognises Crimean Peninsula as an “independent and sovereign country”.

2015: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud Party wins the country’s election after a tight race that had put his lengthy rule in jeopardy.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Madame Roland, French author-revolutionary politician (1754-1793); Edmund Kean, British actor (1787-1833); Kate Greenaway, English illustrator (1846-1901); Rudolf Nureyev, Russian dancer (1938-1993); Bakili Muluzi, former president of Malawi (1943- ); Kurt Russell, US actor (1951- ); Billy Corgan, US musician (1967- )

—AP