Today is the 348th day of 2022. There are 17 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1999: US and German negotiators agree to establish a fund of US$5.2 billion for Nazi-era slaves and forced labourers.

OTHER EVENTS

1911: Norwegian Roald Amundsen, one of the greatest figures in the history of polar exploration, becomes the first person to reach the South Pole after leaving Norway for Antarctica in June 1910.

1952: Eighty-four Korean Communist prisoners interned on Pongam Island are killed during a riot after attempting to escape.

1958: The United States, Britain and France reject Soviet demands that they withdraw their troops from West Berlin and agree to liquidate the Allied Forces’ occupation in West Berlin.

1962: North Rhodesia’s first African-dominated Government is formed under Kenneth Kaunda.

1967: Israel submits to the United Nations a five-year plan to solve the Arab refugee problem, conditioned on a general peace settlement between Israel and the Arab states.

1972: US Apollo 17 astronauts blast off from the moon after three days of exploration on the lunar surface.

1977: The South African Government eases job restrictions on blacks.

1981: Israel annexes Golan Heights, captured from Syria in 1967.

1985: Wilma Mankiller becomes the first woman to lead a major American Indian tribe, taking office as principal chief of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma.

1990: In Hong Kong 10 Vietnamese boat people set fire to themselves to protest a screening policy that could prevent them from settling in the West.

1991: Former East German leader Erich Honecker, facing extradition to Germany and trial on manslaughter charges, is offered asylum in North Korea.

1993: Philadelphia, one of the first mainstream films about AIDS, directed by Jonathan Demme and starring Denzel Washington and Tom Hanks, premieres in Century City, California.

1997: Iranian President Mohammed Khatami says he is ready to re-establish dialogue with the United States, the first such statement since the 1979 revolution in Iran.

1998: In the presence of US President Bill Clinton, the Palestinian Council votes to revoke a paragraph in its charter that demanded the destruction of Israel.

2000: Vladimir Putin, the first Russian president to visit Cuba since the collapse of the Soviet Union, holds talks with Fidel Castro in Havana.

2001: Israeli troops raid four Palestinian towns and villages in the West Bank, killing eight Palestinians and arresting dozens of suspected militants.

2002: A ferry carrying 200 passengers capsizes near the coastal town of Robersport in north-west Liberia. At least 50 people die and more than 100 others go missing.

2003: Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf escapes an assassination attempt when a powerful bomb explodes on a bridge in Rawalpindi, less than a minute after his motorcade crosses it.

2004: Hundreds of Belgrade university students and other Serbs demonstrate in the capital to protest the election of Ramush Haradinaj, Kosovo’s new prime minister — a former ethnic Albanian rebel leader whom Serbs accuse of war crimes.

2006: The Israeli Supreme Court upholds Israel’s policy of targeted killings of Palestinian militants, allowing the army to maintain a practice that has drawn widespread international condemnation.

2008: Voters in Turkmenistan cast ballots in a parliamentary election, the first since the death of dictator Saparmurat Niyazov in late 2006.

2010: Silvio Berlusconi pulls off another astonishing escape from the political dead, scraping through two confidence votes in a dramatic parliamentary showdown as violent street protests show growing unease with his rule.

2011: A commercial US satellite company says it has captured a photo of China’s first aircraft carrier in the Yellow Sea off China’s coast.

2012: A man opens fire inside an elementary school in the north-east state of Connecticut and kills 26 people, including 20 children, in the second-deadliest school shooting in the US.

2019: Miss World is won by Miss Jamaica Toni-Ann Singh in London; it marks the first time all five major beauty titles are held by black women.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Nostradamus, French astrologer and physician (1503-1566); Tycho Brahe, Danish astronomer (1546-1601); James Bruce, Scottish explorer (1730-1794); Roger Fry, English artist (1866-1934); Shirley Jackson, US author (1919-1965); Patty Duke, US actress (1946-2016); Tata Young, Thai-American singer (1980- ); Amber Chia, Malaysian model and actress (1981- ); Vanessa Hudgens, American singer and actress (1988- )

–AP/ Jamaica Observer