Today is the 86th day of 2023. There are 279 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1997: Dexter King, son of Martin Luther King Jr, meets with James Earl Ray, the man in prison for having assassinated the civil rights leader. Ray denies having anything to do with the shooting, to which King replies, “I believe you.”

OTHER EVENTS

1309: Pope Clement V excommunicates Venice and all its population.

1625: Charles I, king of England, Scotland and Ireland, ascends the English throne.

1794: US President George Washington and Congress authorise the creation of the US Navy.

1802: The Peace of Amiens between Britain and France creates a short pause in the Napoleonic Wars.

1814: At the Battle of Horseshoe Bend (Tohopeka, Alabama) in the Creek War, Andrew Jackson and his 3,000 troops defeat the Creek Indians, slaughtering more than 800 warriors and imprisoning 500 women and children.

1836: The first Latter-Day Saint temple is dedicated in Kirtland, Ohio.

1899: Italian Guglielmo Marconi sends the first radio signals across the English Channel.

1914: The first successful, non-direct blood transfusion is performed by Dr Albert Hustin in Brussels.

1915: American domestic Mary Mallon, better known as Typhoid Mary, is placed under a quarantine on North Brother Island, New York City, that lasts until her death in 1938; a typhoid carrier, she was allegedly responsible for multiple outbreaks of typhoid fever.

1941: Yugoslavia’s Prince Paul is deposed in a coup following a pact with Germany’s Adolf Hitler.

1948: Just 11 days after being released from prison, Billie Holiday plays in front of a sold-out crowd at Carnegie Hall.

1958: Nikita Khrushchev becomes the Soviet premier in addition to first secretary of the Communist Party.

1964: South-central Alaska is struck by a 9.2-magnitude earthquake that is the strongest quake ever registered in the United States.

1970: A severe earthquake strikes western Turkey, killing at least 1,087 and leaving 90,000 homeless.

1977: A total of 583 die in aviation’s worst ever disaster when two Boeing 747s collide at Tenerife airport in Spain.

1989: Ethnic unrest shakes the Yugoslav province of Kosovo, killing two police officers and injuring at least eight other people.

1995: South African President Nelson Mandela fires his estranged wife, Winnie, from the Government.

1996: A group of Egyptians hijack an Egypt Air jetliner from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, to Libya when it is about to land in Cairo.

1998: Leading European aircraft makers agree on a merger that will create a single European aerospace and defence company. The drug Viagra from the pharmaceutical company Pfizer is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for use in treating erectile dysfunction.

2000: Courtney Walsh breaks the world record for most wickets (435) in Test cricket at Sabina Park, Kingston, Jamaica. Fighting off a last-minute communist surge, Vladimir Putin scores a convincing victory in presidential elections after promising to end years of political chaos and restore Russia as a global power.

2004: Nearly 500,000 people surround Taiwan’s presidential office and block major streets to protest the recent disputed presidential election as President Chen Shui-bian promises again to back a recount of the election that he narrowly won.

2010: Europe’s best-known landmarks — including the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben and Rome’s Colosseum — fall dark, following Sydney’s Opera House and Beijing’s Forbidden City, joining a global climate change protest as lights are switched off across the world to mark the Earth Hour event.

2011: International air raids target Moammar Gadhafi’s hometown of Sirte for the first time as rebels quickly close in on the regime stronghold, a formidable obstacle that must be overcome for Government opponents to reach the capital Tripoli.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

William von Roentgen, German physicist (1845-1923); Frederick Henry Royce, English auto engineer (1863-1933); Mstislav Rostropovich, Russian musician and one of the best-known cellists of the 20th century (1927-2007); Mariano Rajoy, prime minister of Spain (1955- ); Quentin Tarantino, US film director (1963- ); Mariah Carey, US pop singer (1970- )

— AP/ Jamaica Observer