This is the 108th day of 2023. There are 257 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

2006: The United Nations health agency says about 9,300 people are likely to die of cancers caused by radiation from the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, while a report from Greenpeace puts the potential toll 10 times higher.

OTHER EVENTS

1506: The cornerstone of the current St Peter’s Basilica is laid in the Vatican by Pope Julius II.

1688: In the Germantown Quaker Petition Against Slavery, Francis Daniel Pastorius presents the first formal written protest against African American slavery in English colonies in Germantown, Pennsylvania.

1775: Paul Revere makes his legendary ride, along with William Dawes, to Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, conveying the warning that the British were coming.

1845: Whaling ship The Manhattan, captained by Mercator Cooper, is the first ship officially permitted visit Edo, Japan, in 220 years, rescuing shipwrecked sailors.

1858: A 60-day-long rainfall begins in Chicago.

1869 : The first international cricket match, held in San Francisco, is won by California.

1876: Daniel O’Leary completes a 500-mile walk in 139 hours and 32 minutes.

1879: The trial of Standing Bear-Crook on Indians’ citizen rights begins.

1906: A San Francisco earthquake and fire kill nearly 4,000 while destroying 75 per cent of the city. The Los Angeles Times story on the Azusa Street Revival launches Pentecostalism as a worldwide movement.

1916: Edith Wharton is appointed Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, France’s highest award, for her contribution to the war effort.

1921: Global non-profit youth organisation Junior Achievement is incorporated in Colorado Springs.

1923: Spectators totalling 74,000 (62,281 paid) attend the opening of Yankee Stadium.

1924: Simon and Schuster publishes the first crossword puzzle book in the US.

1934: The first US coin-operated laundry opens in Fort Worth, Texas, USA.

1943: Reports that Russians had slain 10,000 Polish prisoners near Smolensk are denounced by Soviet radio as a”hideous gestapo frameup”.

1946: The League of Nations comes to an end.

1955: German Albert Einstein, considered the most influential physicist of the 20th century, dies at age 76.

1965: Uganda becomes first non-communist nation to formally denounce US involvement in Vietnam.

1976: About 40,000 Israelis march into occupied West Bank, demanding that Israel annex the territory.

1978: The US Senate votes 68-32 to turn the Panama Canal over to Panamanian control on December 31, 1999.

1980: Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) achieves independence from the United Kingdom.

1983: Sixty-two people, including 17 Americans, are killed at the US Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, by a suicide bomber.

1985 “Wham!” becomes the first western pop act to release an album in China.

1986: Angry crowds protest outside American embassies throughout the world as backlash continues against the USA’s attack on Libya.

1989: Thousands of Chinese students demanding democracy try to storm the Communist Party headquarters in Beijing.

1990: Eleven schoolchildren and four others are killed when a school bus is set ablaze during street fighting in Beirut.

1991: Iraq submits a list of chemical and biological weapons capabilities and nuclear facilities to the UN secretary general.

1993: President Ghulam Ishaq Khan of Pakistan dismisses the Government and dissolves Parliament, the culmination of a bitter power struggle with the prime minister.

1994: Former President Richard M Nixon suffers a stroke at his home in New Jersey; he dies four days later at a New York hospital.

1996: A passenger train collides with a stopped freight train at a railroad station in central India, killing at least 60 people.

1998: The first official talks in four years between North and South Korea end with the two sides unable to resolve a dispute over aid to the starving North and reuniting families.

1999: The 25th straight day of NATO attacks on Yugoslavia is the most intense yet, with 500 missions pummelling refineries, bridges and dozens of other targets. Canadian ice hockey player Wayne Gretzky, considered one of the game’s greatest players, skates in his last NHL game.

2002: A US Air National Guard fighter pilot, apparently in the mistaken belief that he was under attack, drops a bomb on Canadian soldiers carrying out a training exercise near Kandahar, Afghanistan, killing four Canadians and wounding eight others.

2007: At least 183 people are killed when four large bombs explode in mostly Shiite locations of Baghdad, including a car bomb near the Sadriyah market that kills 127.

2008: The son of the Dutch Defence Chief General Peter van Uhm is killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan, casting a cloud over Dutch involvement in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s mission just months after the Netherlands reluctantly agreed to extend its mission.

2009: Iran convicts an American journalist of spying for the United States and sentences her to eight years in prison, complicating the Obama Administration’s efforts to break a 30-year-old diplomatic deadlock with Tehran.

2011: More than 5,000 anti-Government protesters in Syria take over the main square of the country’s third-largest city, vowing to occupy the site until President Bashar Assad is ousted and defying authorities who warn they will not be forced into reforms.

2012: Sudan’s president threatens to topple his rival Government to the south, harsh words that could escalate the conflict between the two nations as they intensify clashes over their shared border.

2018: Black Panther is the first film shown at a commercial cinema in 35 years in Saudi Arabia as cinemas are reopened.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Leopold Stokowski, English-born conductor (1882-1977); Franz von Suppe, Austrian-born composer (1819-1895); Ian Smith, Rhodesian leader (1919-2007); Tadeusz Mazowiecki, first post-communist prime minister of Poland (1927-2013); Hortense Ellis, Jamaican singer and pioneer of reggae music (1941-2000); Hayley Mills, British actress (1946- ); James Woods, US actor (1947- ); America Ferrara, US actress (1984- )

– AP/ Jamaica Observer