Today is the 228th day of 2023. There are 137 days left in the year

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

2022: Sections of China’s Yangtze River launch weather modification programmes due to severe drought conditions, including seeding clouds with silver iodide rods to encourage rain.

OTHER EVENTS

1501: The Overseers of the Office of Works (the Operai) of the Duomo award Michelangelo the contract to create his statue of David at the Florence Cathedral.

1743: Champion of England titleholder Jack Broughton publishes Rules of the Ring — the earliest boxing code.

1829: Siamese twins Chang & Eng Bunker arrive in Boston to be exhibited.

1861: US President Abraham Lincoln prohibits Union states from trading with Confederacy.

1865: The Dominican Republic regains its independence after four years of fighting against the Spanish annexation.

1888: Inventor of Coca-Cola, John Pemberton, who was an American pharmacist, dies of stomach cancer at 55.

1896: Gold is first discovered in Klondike, found at the Bonanza Creek in the Yukon, Canada, by George Carmack.

1899: Robert Bunsen, the German chemist who invented the Bunsen burner, dies at 88.

1920: Sir Norman Lockyer, English physicist, co-founder of helium gas, and founder and editor of Nature magazine, dies at 84.

1930: The first colour sound cartoon, Fiddlesticks by Ub Iwerks (ex-Walt Disney studio), is released.

1940: Henri Desgrange, French cyclist, journalist and founder of the Tour de France, dies at 75.

1944: More than 1,000 US bombers from Britain attack aircraft bases and factories in Germany; 32 German planes are shot down and 23 bombers go missing.

1945: Puyi, the last Chinese emperor and ruler of Manchukuo, is captured by Soviet troops.

1946: Direct Action Day takes place with widespread riots erupting in Calcutta between Muslims and Hindus over whether Pakistan should be a separate State; over 4,000 are killed and 100,000 are left homeless.

1948: Babe Ruth, American Baseball Hall of Fame slugger, dies of nasopharynx cancer at 53.

1954: The first issue of Sports Illustrated is released; the weekly publication (later changed to monthly) becomes the leading sports magazine in the United States.

1960: The island of Cyprus becomes an independent republic.

1962: The US recognises Jamaica’s independence with the establishment of the American Embassy in Kingston; Irving Cheslaw is chargé d’affaires.

1974: Turkish invaders of Cyprus complete division of the island into two areas.

1977: Elvis Presley, known as the king of rock and roll, is found dead at his home in Memphis, Tennessee of a heart attack brought on largely by drug abuse.

1989: Palestinian activists in the Gaza Strip call for a two-week boycott of jobs in Israel to protest computerised identity cards for day labourers.

1990: With spears and axes men hack their way through a train station in Soweto, South Africa, killing at least nine people.

1991: The United Nations and the South African Government agree on amnesty terms for political exiles, clearing the way for an estimated 40,000 refugees to return to South Africa.

1996: France takes a tough position on African immigrants, saying those who arrive illegally — including 10 on the 43rd day of a hunger strike — will not be allowed to stay.

1999: Russia’s Lower House of Parliament approves Vladimir Putin as the country’s new president.

2001: NATO allows British servicemen and women to head to Macedonia for a mission to collect and destroy rebel arms.

2002: Monsoon floods in South Asia kill more than 900 people and displace or maroon some 25 million more over the next two months.

2003: Ugandan military ruler Idi Amin, 78, who presided over an eight-year reign of terror from 1971-1979 during which an estimated 300,000 people were killed and tortured to death, dies of multiple organ failure.

2004: Venezuelans vote to keep President Hugo Chavez in office in a popular referendum, following a long and bitter campaign by his Opposition to oust him.

2005: A chartered jet filled with tourists returning home to the French Caribbean island of Martinique crashes in western Venezuela, killing all 160 people on-board.

2006: The Israeli army begins its withdrawal from southern Lebanon, handing over some of their positions to a UN force.

2007: A powerful 7.9-magnitude earthquake shakes Peru’s coast near the capital, toppling buildings, setting off landslides, injuring at least 827, and killing at least 500.

2008: Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt sets a new world record of 9.69 seconds to win the coveted 100m gold medal at the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics.

2009: Usain Bolt shatters his 100m World record of 9.69 seconds — set at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China — to win the final of the World Championships in Berlin, Germany, in 9.58 seconds.

2010: A Boeing 737 jetliner filled with vacationers crashes in a thunderstorm and breaks apart as it slides onto the runway on a Caribbean island near Colombia. Only one of the 131 people on-board dies, and the island’s governor calls it a miracle.

2012: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange wins asylum in Ecuador but legal experts say the decision by the South American nation to identify him as a refugee and let him reside in its London embassy does little to help him avoid extradition to Sweden on sexual assault allegations.

2016: Brazilian businessman and sports official João Havelange — who served as president of Fifa (the governing body of soccer) from 1974 to 1998, transforming it into one of the world’s largest and most powerful sports organisations, but who was later implicated in a massive corruption scandal — dies at age 100.

2017: Philippine police kill 32 in raids near Manilia — the most deadly night in President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs. The Lebanon Parliament abolishes Article 522 which exempted rapists from prosecution if they married their victim

2018: American singer Aretha Franklin, who defined the golden age of soul music of the 1960s and was known as the Queen of Soul, dies at age 76.

2019: A huge fire in the Chalantika slum in Dhaka, Bangladesh, destroys 1,200 houses and leaves up to 10,000 homeless.

2020: Japan’s economy, the world’s third-largest, posts its worst-ever decline, falling 7.8 per cent for the April-June quarter.

2021: US President Joe Biden says, “I stands squarely behind my decision” to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan, despite the sudden collapse of the country to the Taliban.

2022 US President Joe Biden signs the Inflation Reduction Act into law with US$370 billion of spending and tax cuts to combat climate change.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Jean de la Bruyere, French essayist-novelist (1645-1696); Shimon Peres, prime minister and president of Israel (1923-2016); Eydie Gorme, US singer (1932-2013); Bruce Beresford, Australian film director (1940- ); Suzanne Farrell, US ballerina (1945- ); Madonna, US pop singer (1958- ); James Cameron, Canadian film-maker (Titanic and Avatar) (1954- )

– AP / Jamaica Observer