Today is the 297th day of 2023. There are 68 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHTS

1865: Jamaican Baptist deacon and activist Paul Bogle is hanged for his role in the Morant Bay Rebellion; he is conferred with the Order of National Hero in 1969.

2000: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak appeals to Opposition Leader Ariel Sharon to join a coalition government, further dashing hopes of reconciliation with the Palestinians.

OTHER EVENTS

1648: The Peace of Westphalia ends the Thirty Years War and effectively destroys the Holy Roman Empire.

1882: Dr Robert Koch discovers the germ that causes tuberculosis.

1935: Italy invades Ethiopia.

1939: Nazis require Jews to wear the Star of David in Germany.

1940: The 40-hour workweek goes into effect in the United States under the Fair Labour Standards Act of 1938.

1945: The United Nations officially comes into existence as its charter takes effect.

1962: The US blockade of Cuba begins under a proclamation signed by President John F Kennedy.

1971: South African police stage predawn searches of 115 homes of prominent persons, many critical of apartheid policies.

1972: The first African American to play in Major League Baseball (MLB) and the 1947 MLB Rookie of the Year, Jackie Robinson dies of a heart attack.

1978: The US, which imposed an aid embargo in 1977 in response to Pakistan’s insistence on purchasing a nuclear facility from France, resumes economic assistance.

1979: The Guinness Book of Records presents Paul McCartney with a rhodium disc as the all-time best-selling singer-songwriter.

1997: UN officials say the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan have agreed to enforce a ban on opium production.

1998: A black player is accepted for the first time by the South African rugby team, the world champions.

1999: A Venezuelan constitutional assembly approves a measure calling for “truthful information” in the media, alarming critics who say it could result in an attack on the free press.

2004: Iraqi insurgents waylay three minibuses carrying US-trained Iraqi soldiers heading home on leave and massacre about 50 of them — many of them shot in the head execution-style.

2005: Rosa Parks, revered as “the first lady of civil rights” and “the mother of the freedom movement”, dies of natural causes at the age of 92; Parks’s refusal to give up her seat on the bus to a white passenger became an important symbol of the modern civil rights movement, making her an international icon of resistance to racial segregation.

2007: China launches its first lunar probe.

2017: American musician Fats Domino, one of the first rock and roll stars and who helped define the New Orleans sound, dies at age 89.

2018: An EU directive bans single-use plastics by 2021. Scientists confirm East Island in Hawaii, half a mile long, has been wiped out after contact with Hurricane Walaka. Indian cricketer Virat Kohli becomes the fastest-ever to score 10,000 runs in One-Day International matches, taking just 205 innings.

2020: The deadliest shipwreck of the year claims 140 lives when the vessel sinks off the coast of Senegal with 200 migrants on-board.

2021: Tom Brady becomes the first quarterback in NFL history to record 600 touchdown passes, during the Buccaneers’ 38-3 rout of the Chicago Bears.

2022: A five-month-old bar-tailed godwit becomes a world record holder by flying 8,425 miles non-stop from Alaska to Australia in 11 days. UK’s ruling Conservative party appoints Rishi Sunak as their next leader and prime minister (PM); Sunak is the first PM of colour in the country’s history.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Domitian, Roman emperor (51 AD-96 AD); Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, Dutch scientist (1632-1723); Bah dur Sh h II, Mughal emperor (1775-1862);Drake (Aubrey Drake Graham), singer-songwriter (1986- )

­— AP/Jamaica Observer