Today is the 250th day of 2023. There are 115 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1919: Cultural icon Louise Bennett is born in Kingston, Jamaica.

OTHER EVENTS

1599: Britain’s Earl of Essex signs truce with Irish rebel Tyrone.

1701: Treaty of the Hague, known as the Grand Alliance, is signed, as Britain, Holland and Holy Roman Empire ally against France.

1714: France signs Peace of Baden with Holy Roman Empire, as France keeps Alsace and Strasbourg.

1764: Stanislaus Poniatowski, protégé of Russia, is elected king of Poland.

1776: The first submarine used in warfare makes an unsuccessful attempt to attach a mine to a British flagship in New York harbour.

1812: Russians begin to abandon Moscow after defeat by French at Borodino.

1822: Brazil proclaims independence from Portugal.

1848: Serfdom is abolished in Austria.

1860: Forces under Giuseppe Garibaldi enter Naples, the capital of the Kingdom of Two Sicilies, four months after he landed with 1,000 volunteers in Sicily.

1901: Peace of Peking ends Boxer Rebellion in China.

1927: American television pioneer Philo T Farnsworth succeeds in transmitting an image through purely electronic means by using a device called an image dissector.

1939: German army overruns Pomerania and Silesia in Poland.

1940: The Blitz, during World War II, begins in earnest: German planes bomb London for the first of 57 consecutive nights.

1962: Laos establishes diplomatic relations with China and North Vietnam.

1966: Nearly 4,000 US troops land in Vungtau, South Vietnam; raising the number of US ground forces in the country to about 308,000 men.

1971: Rhodesian security police kill seven and wound one member of FRELIMO, the Mozambique Liberation Front. The fighting took place on the Rhodesian side of the Mozambique-Rhodesian border when guerrillas looking for food threatened the occupants of an African kraal. Rhodesia is now known as Zimbabwe.

1977: The Panama Canal treaties, calling for the US to eventually turn over control of the waterway to Panama, are signed in Washington, DC.

1981: An Afghan Government announcement recalling young retired soldiers to active duty reportedly sparks protests and a flight of young men from Kabul.

1986: Desmond Tutu is installed as the first black man to lead the Anglican Church in southern Africa.

1992: Opposition leaders force Tajikistan President Rakhman Nabiyev to resign after more than a week of armed protests against his rule.

1995: The North Atlantic Treaty Organization jets step up raids on Bosnian Serb military targets and set off thunderous blasts, trying to force the Serbs to withdraw heavy weapons from Sarajevo.

1996: In Rome, an 18-year-old black woman is named Miss Italy after two judges at the pageant are dismissed for saying her skin colour doesn’t reflect true Italian beauty.

1999: Greece’s deadliest quake in more than 40 years strikes outside Athens, killing at least 101 people.

2002: Twenty Russian officers are disciplined for negligence connected to the deadly crash of an Mi-26 military transport helicopter in mid-August. A Chechen rebel’s missile attack caused the crash that killed 119 people. The aircraft was overloaded, resulting in the high number of casualties.

2004: Iran offers to stop some activities linked to uranium enrichment. The United States said the move would not stop it from trying to have Tehran hauled before the UN Security Council for allegedly trying to make nuclear arms.

2005: UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and his top deputy failed the ideals of the United Nations in their management of the oil-for-food programme by allowing corruption and waste to flourish, a year-long probe concludes.

2006: A fire breaks out in a Siberian gold and metals mine, killing 25 miners who fight the blaze or attempt to escape through long underground tunnels.

2007: Osama bin Laden appears for the first time in three years in a videotape released ahead of the sixth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, telling Americans they should convert to Islam if they want the war in Iraq to end.

2008: Astroland, New York City’s world-famous amusement park at Coney Island, closes after 46 years.

2009: Three British Muslims are convicted of plotting to kill thousands by downing at least seven airliners bound for the US and Canada in what was intended as the largest terrorist attack since September 11, 2001.

2010: The international crossfire over Iran’s stoning sentence for a woman convicted of adultery intensifies with a top European Union official calling it “barbaric” and an Iranian spokesman saying it’s about punishing a criminal and not a human rights issue.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Giacomo Ancionio, Italian theologist (1492-1566); England’s Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603); August Kekule von Stradonitz, German chemist (1829-1896); Elia Kazan, US film director (1909-2003); Todor Zhivkov, Communist ruler of Bulgaria (1911-1998); Belgium’s King Baudouin (1930-1993); Leroi Moore, saxophonist (1961-2008); Sonny Rollins, US jazz musician (1930- ); Gloria Gaynor, US singer (1949- ); Chrissie Hynde, US singer (1951- ); Evan Rachel Wood, actress (1987- )

— AP and the Jamaica Observer