Today is the 257th day of 2022. There are 108 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1814: Francis Scott Key is inspired to write the poem Defence of Fort McHenry (later The Star-Spangled Banner) after witnessing the American flag flying over the Maryland fort following a night of British naval bombardment during the War of 1812.

OTHER EVENTS

1770: Freedom of the press is allowed in Denmark.

1812: Napoleon Bonaparte enters Moscow and Russians set fires throughout the city.

1864: Japan agrees to a truce following an attack by British, French and Dutch fleets in the Shimonoseki Straits, in reprisal for Japan’s closure of ports and its expelling of foreigners.

1901: US President William McKinley dies in Buffalo, New York, of gunshot wounds inflicted by an assassin. Vice-President Theodore Roosevelt succeeds him.

1911: Peter Stolypin, Russian premier, is fatally shot by a revolutionary.

1927: Modern dance pioneer Isadora Duncan dies in Nice, France, when her scarf becomes entangled in the wheel of a sports car in which she was riding.

1948: A ground-breaking ceremony takes place in New York at the site of the United Nations’ world headquarters.

1954: The Soviet Union detonates a 40-kiloton atomic test weapon.

1959: The Soviet space probe Luna 2 becomes the first man-made object to reach the moon.

1960: Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is founded.

1972: US Senate approves US-Soviet agreement to freeze a major part of their offensive nuclear arsenals for five years.

1982: Lebanese Christians massacre hundreds of Palestinians after their leader, President-elect Bashir Gemayel, is killed by a bomb. Princess Grace of Monaco, formerly actress Grace Kelly, dies at age 52 of injuries from a car crash the day before.

1993: Israel and Jordan sign an “agenda for peace” in Washington — one day after Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization signed their interim accord for Palestinian self-rule.

1996: Bosnia holds its first post-war election.

2001: Americans pack churches and clog public squares on a day of remembrance for the victims of the September 11 attacks. President George W Bush flies to New York where to the ruins of the World Trade Center and addresses rescue workers in a flag-waving, bullhorn-wielding show of resolve.

2006: Germany ordains its first rabbis since World War II — an event hailed as a milestone in the rebirth of Jewish life in the nation.

2007: Vladimir Putin rewrites the rules for Russia’s closely watched presidential succession and names his new prime minister, Viktor Zubkov. In Iraq some 1,500 mourners call for revenge as they bury the leader of the Sunni revolt against al-Qaeda, Adbul-Sattar Abu Risha, who had been assassinated in a bombing claimed by an al-Qaeda front.

2012: Fury over an anti-Islam film spreads across the Muslim world with deadly clashes near Western embassies in Tunisia and Sudan, an American fast-food restaurant set ablaze in Lebanon, and international peacekeepers attacked in Sinai.

2013: A diplomatic breakthrough on securing and destroying Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile, negotiated by the US and Russia, averts the threat of US military action.

2014: Diplomats from around the world press for a coherent global strategy to combat Islamic State group extremists after they behead yet another Western hostage.

2016: President Barack Obama declares the US is lifting economic sanctions and restoring trade benefits to former pariah State Myanmar as he meets with former political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi, the nation’s de facto leader. Tyre King, a 13-year-old boy, is fatally shot by Columbus, Ohio, police after authorities say he pulled a BB gun from his pants.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Maria Luigi Cherubini, Italian composer (1760-1842); Alexander von Humboldt, German astronomer-explorer (1769-1859); Ivan Pavlov, Russian physiologist (1849-1936); Margaret Sanger, US birth control pioneer (1879-1966); Zoe Caldwell, Australian actress (1933-2020); Sam Neill, Irish actor (1947- ); Amy Winehouse, singer/songwriter (1983-2011); Tyler Perry, actor-writer-director-producer (1969- ); Nas, rapper (1973- )

– AP