Today is the 286th day of 2023. There are79 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

2005: Islamic militants launch a major attack on police and government buildings in the provincial capital of Nalchik in Russia’s volatile Caucasus region, turning the city into a war zone wracked by gunfire and explosions. At least 49 people, including 25 militants, are killed.

OTHER EVENTS

1775: The US Navy is founded as the Continental Congress orders the construction of a naval fleet.

1903: The Boston Americans (later Boston Red Sox) defeat the Pittsburgh Pirates to win the first modern World Series.

1943: Italy, during World War II, declares war on Germany — its former Axis partner.

1950: The film classic All About Eve, starring Bette Davis and Anne Baxter, premieres in both Paris and New York City; known for its acid wit it won six Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

1969: The Soviet Union sends its third spacecraft into orbit in as many days, putting seven cosmonauts in space.

1976: The first electron micrograph of an Ebola viral particle is obtained by Dr F A Murphy, working at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

1978: James Earl Ray, assassin of Martin Luther King, weds Anna Sandhu.

1981: Voters in Egypt participate in a referendum to elect Vice-President Hosni Mubarak as the new president, one week after the assassination of Anwar Sadat.

1987: Costa Rica’s President Oscar Arias Sanchez wins the Nobel Peace Prize for sponsoring a plan to end civil wars in Central America.

1990: General Michel Aoun, the Christian army commander who defied the Syrian-backed Lebanese Government for more than two years, surrenders power in the face of a Syrian-led military attack during the civil war.

1991: A total of 21 blacks are killed in a series of attacks in South Africa’s black townships.

1993: A fanatic fan of tennis star Steffi Graf is convicted in the stabbing of rival Monica Seles and receives a two-year suspended sentence.

1994: In the largest deal between software firms, Intuit Inc accepts a US$1.5-billion takeover offer from Microsoft Corporation.

1996: In response to strikes at its Canadian plants, General Motors Corporation lays off more than 1,300 workers at its Cadillac assembly plant outside Detroit.

1999: French lawmakers adopt a law giving unwed gay and straight couples the same rights previously limited to the married. Similar legislation already exists in several European countries.

2001: President Hosni Mubarak issues an order that 83 suspected Islamic militants stand trial in Egypt’s State security court.

2006: Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank he founded win the Nobel Peace Prize for their pioneering use of tiny loans — microcredit — to lift millions out of poverty.

2010: With remarkable speed, miner after miner climbs into a cramped cage deep beneath the Chilean earth and are hoisted through 2,000 feet (600 metres) of rock to see precious sunlight, following the longest underground entrapment in history of 69 days after their mine collapsed in Atacama Desert.

2011: Raj Rajaratnam, the hedge fund billionaire at the centre of the biggest insider trading case in US history, is sentenced to 11 years behind bars — the stiffest punishment ever handed out for the crime.

2012: Iran says it is ready to show flexibility at nuclear talks to ease Western concerns over its contentious nuclear programme, as tensions rise in the stand-off between the Islamic Republic, Israel and the West.

2014: A gay rights groups hail a “seismic shift” by the Catholic church toward gays after bishops say homosexuals have gifts to offer the church.

2016: Donald Trump heatedly rejects the growing list of sexual assault allegations against him as “pure fiction”, hammering his female accusers as “horrible, horrible liars”.

2017: Actress Rose McGowan alleges that Harvey Weinstein raped her in 1997.

2018: Pope Francis defrocks two Chilean bishops for alleged sexual abuse of minors.

2019: Simone Biles becomes the most decorated gymnast in history when she wins record 25th medal at the World Championships in Stuttgart, Germany.

2022: A jury recommends a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole for the shooter who pled guilty to killing 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in 2018.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Yves Montand, Italian-born French singer-actor (1921-1991); Margaret Thatcher, British prime minister (1925-2013); Paul Simon, US singer (1941- ); Marie Osmond, US actress/singer (1959- ); Sacha Baron Cohen, British actor (1971- )

– AP