Today is the 145th day of 2023. There are 220 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

2020: Video of African American George Floyd’s arrest and murder while restrained in Minneapolis police custody, showing he was pinned to the ground by police officer Derek Chauvin’s knee for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, ignites widespread condemnation and nationwide protests.

OTHER EVENTS

1241: The Jewish community of Frankfurt am Main, Germany is attacked for the first time.

1571: Pope Pius V forms The Holy League with other Catholic maritime states — including Spain, Venice, Naples and Sicily — to fight the Ottomans.

1720: The Ship Le Grand St Antoine reaches Marseille, bringing Europe’s last major plague outbreak which kills around 100,000.

1784: Jews are expelled from Warsaw by Marshall Mniszek.

1887: A gas lamp at Paris Opera catches fire and 200 die.

1895: The trial of acclaimed Irish writer Oscar Wilde ends with him being found guilty of “committing acts of gross indecency with certain male persons”; he is sentenced to two years of hard labour.

1898: Chocolatier Milton S Hershey weds Catherine Sweeney at St Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City.

1911: A revolution in Mexico overthrows President Porfirio Diaz.

1919: African American entrepreneur and first American, female, self-made millionaire Madame C J Walker dies of kidney failure complications at 51.

1923: The Jamaica Public Service Company Ltd (JPS) is registered. The independence of Transjordan — now Jordan — under Amir Abdullah is proclaimed.

1935: Legendary American athlete Jesse Owens equals or breaks four world records in 45 minutes at a Big Ten meet at Ferry Field in Ann Arbor, Michigan — remembered as “the greatest 45 minutes ever in sport”.

1937: The first airmail letter to circle the globe returns to New York.

1941: In the Ganges Delta region in India 5,000 drown in a storm.

1946: Abdullh I, ruler of Transjordan, proclaims himself king.

1953: The first non-commercial educational television station is established in Houston, Texas.

1959: The US Supreme Court rules Louisiana prohibiting black-white boxing is unconstitutional.

1964: The US Supreme Court rules closing schools to avoid desegregation is unconstitutional.

1965: Boxing champion Sugar Ray Robinson weds Millie Bruce in Los Angeles. Muhammad Ali knocks out Sonny Liston at 2:12 of round 1 at Central Maine Civic Center, Lewiston, reatining his WBC/WBA heavyweight boxing title.

1969: Midnight Cowboy is released in theatres, and the drama — starring Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman — goes on to become the only X-rated film to win the Academy Award for best picture.

1977: George Lucas’s space opera film Star Wars (later known as Star Wars: Episode IV—New Hope) is released, launching one of the most successful and influential franchises in motion picture history.

1982: Ferguson Jenkins becomes the seventh pitcher to strike out 3,000 batters.

1983: The first US National Missing Children’s Day is proclaimed. A fire in Nassermeer, Egypt, kills 357.

1989: Chinese Premier Li Peng denies that troops surrounding Beijing are deployed to crush student protests.

1991: In a two-day airlift Israel brings 15,000 Ethiopian Jews from the besieged city of Addis Ababa to Israel.

1992: Jay Leno makes his debut as permanent host of NBC’s Tonight Show, succeeding Johnny Carson.

1998: Indonesia’s new president, B J Habibie, announces that elections will be held and begins releasing some political prisoners.

2006: US President George W Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair hold a White House news conference in which they acknowledge making costly mistakes in Iraq.

2011: The last episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show airs; the long-running TV programme helped make Winfrey one of the richest and most influential women in the United States.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Ralph Waldo Emerson, US writer (1803-1882); Padre Pio, Italian priest and saint (1887-1968); Igor Sikorsky, Russian aircraft designer, and developer of the helicopter (1889-1972); Beverly Sills, US opera singer (1929-2007); Ian McKellen, English actor (1939- ); Frank Oz, British-born director/voice of Yoda and Miss Piggy (1944- ); Lincoln Barrington “Sugar” Minott, Jamaican reggae singer, producer, and sound system operator (1956-2010); Mike Myers, Canadian actor-comedian (1963- )

— AP/Jamaica Observer