Today is the 207th day of 2022. There are 158 days left in the y

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

2006: In a dramatic turnaround from her first murder trial, Andrea Yates is found not guilty by reason of insanity by a Houston jury in the bathtub drownings of her five children; she is committed to a state mental hospital. (Yates had initially been found guilty of murder but had her conviction overturned.)

OTHER EVENTS

1821: Turkey and Russia sever relations after Turkey refuses to protect Christian subjects.

1847: Liberia becomes the first African colony to declare its independence.

1891: France annexes South Sea island of Tahiti.

1908: The Federal Bureau of Investigation — the FBI — is established in the United States.

1926: Philippines legislature calls for plebiscite on independence but it is vetoed by US governor general.

1945: Britain, United States and China demand Japan’s unconditional surrender as terms for peace in World War II; Winston Churchill resigns as Britain’s prime minister after his Conservatives are defeated by the Labour Party.

1947: The US Department of Defense is established under the Armed Forces Unification Act.

1952: Eva Peron, popular leader and wife of Argentine President Juan Peron, dies of cancer at age 33; Egypt’s King Farouk abdicates in favour of his infant son after a military coup led by Gamal Abdel Nasser.

1953: Fidel Castro leads an attack on army barracks in Santiago, Cuba, in the hope of sparking a popular uprising. Most of the 160 revolutionaries are killed and Castro is captured but later receives an amnesty.

1956: Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser seizes control of the Suez Canal and nationalises it, sparking a crisis that later results in French, British, and Israeli forces briefly occupying parts of Egypt.

1974: Konstantinos Karamanlis, new Greek premier, forms civilian Cabinet after seven years of military rule in Greece.

1984: Liberian President Samuel K Doe lifts four-year ban on political activity as part of a plan to restore constitutional rule with general elections at the end of following year.

1990: The Americans with Disabilities Act is signed into law by President George H W Bush; the legislation provides civil rights protections to individuals with physical and mental disabilities and guarantees them equal opportunity in public accommodations, employment, transportation, state and local government services, and telecommunications. Iraq agrees to pull thousands of troops back from Kuwaiti border after Kuwait agrees to cut oil production.

1991: Communist leaders overwhelmingly approve Mikhail Gorbachev’s new party platform, abandoning decades of Marxist dogma.

1992: Iraqi President Saddam Hussein ends a three-week stand-off and allows UN inspectors to search the Agriculture Ministry in Baghdad for chemical weapons.

1994: Israel warns of a new wave of terrorism by Islamic extremists after a car bomb wrecks part of its London embassy, injuring 14 people.

1997: K R Narayanan takes the oath of India’s presidency, the first member of the class once known as “untouchables” to do so.

1998: Prime Minister Hun Sen’s party wins a majority in Cambodia elections a year after he ousted his rival Prince Norodom Ranariddh in a bloody coup.

2000: The European Union proposes a ban on the import of “conflict diamonds” from Sierra Leone. The proposal matches a similar resolution passed by the UN Security Council.

2001: Indonesia’s ousted President Abdurrahman Wahid vacates the palace and leaves the country, ending a stand-off and clearing the way for his successor, Megawati Sukarnoputri.

2002: A court in Jakarta, Indonesia, convicts Hutomo Mandala Putra, son of former President Suharto, of hiring the assassins who murdered the Supreme Court justice who convicted Putra of fraud.

2004: The European Union joins the US in pushing for “imminent” UN sanctions against Sudan if it does not end the conflict in its western Darfur region. Sudan criticises the move, saying it would just make things worse.

2005: Judges in Amsterdam hand down a rare maximum sentence of life with no possibility of parole for the Dutch-born Muslim who confessed to — and expressed no regret for — shooting, stabbing and nearly decapitating film-maker Theo van Gogh.

2006: Israeli aircraft and artillery fire at Palestinian militants in Gaza, killing 18 Palestinians, including at least three little girls, as Israel presses ahead with its offensive alongside fighting in Lebanon.

2008: At least 29 people are killed and 88 wounded when a series of small explosions hit the western Indian city of Ahmadabad.

2009: In a drive to inoculate people against swine flu before winter, many European governments say they will fast-track the testing of a vaccine, arousing concern among some experts about safety and proper doses.

2010: A UN-backed tribunal sentences the Khmer Rouge’s chief jailer to 35 years for overseeing the deaths of up to 16,000 people — the first verdict involving a senior member of the “killing fields” regime that devastated a generation of Cambodians.

2011: Kosovo’s prime minister defends an order for his special police to take control of two contested border crossings with Serbia, saying it was “the right decision” despite condemnation from the European Union.

2013: Ariel Castro, the man who imprisoned three women in his Cleveland home, subjecting them to a decade of rapes and beatings, pleads guilty to 937 counts in a deal to avoid the death penalty. (Castro later committed suicide in prison.) A gunman goes on a rampage at a Hialeah, Florida, apartment complex, killing six people before being shot dead by police. Billionaire Texas oilman George P Mitchell, considered the father of fracking, dies at his home in Galveston at 94. J J Cale, whose best songs like After Midnight and Cocaine were towering hits for other artistes, dies in La Jolla, California at 74.

2016: Hillary Clinton becomes the first woman to be nominated for president by a major political party at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.

2017: US President Donald Trump announces on Twitter that he will not “accept or allow” transgender people to serve in the US military. (The pronouncement is blocked by legal challenges, and the Pentagon begins allowing transgender recruits to seek enlistment on January 1.) A thrill ride breaks apart at the Ohio State Fair, killing an 18-year-old high school student and injuring seven others. Child-killer Ronald Phillips is put to death in Ohio’s first execution in 3½ years; they’d been put on hold amid an uproar over the reliability of the lethal injection drugs used by the state. Actress June Foray, the voice of Rocky the Flying Squirrel and hundreds of other cartoon characters, dies in a Los Angeles hospital at the age of 99.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

George Bernard Shaw, Irish writer (1856-1950); Carl Jung, Swiss psychologist (1875-1961); Antonio Machado, Spanish writer (1875-1939); George Grosz, German painter (1893-1959); Aldous Huxley, British author (1894-1963); Blake Edwards, producer/director (1922-2010): Stanley Kubrick, US film director (1928-1999); Mick Jagger, British pop singer (1943- ); Kevin Spacey, US actor (1959- ); Sandra Bullock, US actress (1964- ); Kate Beckinsale, English actress (1973- ).

— AP