Today is the 236th day of 2023. There are 129 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

2007: Major wildfires break out in Greece, burning half a million acres and claiming 65 lives in 11 days.

OTHER EVENTS

AD 79: Long-dormant Mount Vesuvius erupts, burying the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum in volcanic ash; an estimated 20,000 people die.

1572: The St Bartholomew’s Day massacre of French Protestants at the hands of Catholics begins in Paris.

1932: Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly non-stop across the United States, travelling for 19 hours.

1954: US President Dwight D Eisenhower signs the Communist Control Act, outlawing the Communist Party in the United States.

1959: The exiled Dalai Lama charges more Chinese than Tibetans live in Tibet and that the extermination of the Tibetan race is in progress; up to that time about 80,000 Tibetans had been killed during the Tibetan revolt.

1969: Iraq executes 15 people on a charge of spying for the United States and Israel.

1981: Mark David Chapman is sentenced in New York to 20 years to life in prison for the murder of British rock star John Lennon.

1990: Irish hostage Brian Keenan is freed by Lebanese kidnappers after more than four years in captivity.

1991: Ukraine becomes the seventh of 15 Soviet republics to declare independence; Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as head of Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

1992: South Korea and China establish diplomatic relations; China invaded South Korea during the Korean War and remains one of the staunchest allies of communist North Korea.

1994: The United Nations suspends efforts to repatriate Rwandan refugees after Hutu extremists mob the first group which agreed to be brought home.

1999: At least 100,000 public workers march in cities around South Africa, in the largest mass labour action since apartheid ended, to demand wage increases.

2000: Reverend John Kaiser, an outspoken American priest critical of the Kenyan Government’s human rights record, is found dead in western Kenya; the circumstances of his death are unclear.

2004: Chechen suicide bombers destroy two Russian airliners, killing a combined total of 90 passengers and crew.

2005: A Hong Kong judge sides with a 20-year-old gay man who challenged laws against homosexuality, including one that demands a life sentence for sodomy when one or both men are younger than 21.

2007: A judge in Inverness, Florida, sentences John Evander Couey to death for kidnapping nine-year-old Jessica Lunsford, raping her, and burying her alive. James Ford Seale, a reputed Ku Klux Klansman, is sentenced to three life terms for his role in the 1964 abduction and murder of two black teenagers in south-western Mississippi.

2010: Scientists say they have identified a sun-like star with as many as seven different planets.

2012: The US Anti-Doping Agency wipes out 14 years of Lance Armstrong’s cycling career — including his record seven Tour de France titles — and bars him for life from the sport after concluding he had used banned substances.

2013: A total of 30 people are killed in a gang battle involving flame throwers in Palmasola prison, Bolivia.

2014: Nurse William Pooley flies back to the UK for emergency treatment after contracting the Ebola virus following her attempt to treat patients in Sierra Leone.

2015: Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce becomes the first female to win three 100m World Championships titles.

2017: The largest-ever lottery jackpot win in the US, $758.7 million, is claimed byy Mavis Wanczyk of Massachusetts in the Powerball Jackpot.

2018: Aerosmith lead singer Steven Tyler sends a cease-and-desist letter to US President Trump demanding he stop using the band’s songs at rallies

2020: The first documented case of a person being re-infected with COVID-19 a second time is recorded when a Hong Kong man falls ill four months after his first infection.

2022: British-Belgian teen Mack Rutherford becomes at 17 the youngest person to fly solo around the world, landing in Bulgaria after a five-month journey across 52 countries.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Jorge Luis Borges, Argentine writer (1899-1986); Angie Brooks, Liberian diplomat (1928-2007); Kenny Baker, English actor (Star Wars’ R2D2) (1934-2016); Marshall Thompson, American rhythm and blues singer of The Chi-Lites (1942- ); Ken Hensley, rock musician (1945-2020); Linton Kwesi Johnson (“LKJ”), Jamaican dub poet (1952- )

– AP/Jamaica Observer