This is the 310th day of 2023. There are 55 days left in the year

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

2005: The Swaminarayan Akshardham Temple, a sandstone building dedicated to religious tolerance, is ceremonially opened in New Delhi by Indian President APJ Abdul Kalam, a Muslim; Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, a Sikh; and LK Advani, Hindu leader of the main Opposition party.

OTHER EVENTS

1528: Shipwrecked Spanish conquistador Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca becomes the first known European to set foot in Texas.

1860: Abraham Lincoln is elected president of the United States.

1865: During the American Civil War CSS Shenandoah is the last Confederate combat unit to surrender after circumnavigating the globe, on its cruise that sank or captured 37 vessels.

1913: Mohandas K Gandhi is arrested as he leads a protest march of Indian miners in South Africa.

1942: A tidal wave kills 10,000 people in Bengal, India.

1947: NBC’s Meet the Press debuts — USA’s longest-running TV show.

1962: The United Nations General Assembly calls for economic sanctions against South Africa because of its racial policies.

1971: The World Synod of Roman Catholic Bishops ends a stormy meeting at the Vatican, divided on the question of whether married men may become priests.

1976: Guerrilla warfare in Rhodesia (later Zimbabwe) is endorsed by leaders of neighbouring black countries at a meeting in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania.

1983: Businessman Vidal Sassoon weds dressage champion Jeanette Hartford-Davis

1991: The last of more than 700 Kuwaiti oil wells set on fire by Iraqi forces during the Persian Gulf war are doused, as firefighting teams complete in eight months a job oil officials estimated would take more than two years.

1994: Rescuers struggle to reach villages and families trapped under the rubble of collapsed houses amid the devastation caused by heavy flooding across southern Europe.

1996: About 1,000 people are killed when a cyclone hits Andhra Pradesh State in southern India — the deadliest cyclone in India since 1977 when more than 10,000 people were killed, also in Andhra Pradesh.

2001: The venerable Belgian airline Sabena is declared bankrupt, and its final scheduled flight, from Benin, lands at Brussels International Airport.

2008: Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuck becomes Bhutan’s first king since its transformation to democracy.

2009: Prime Minister Gordon Brown warns Afghanistan’s Government to take action against corruption, saying he will not risk more British lives there unless it reforms.

2010: A Yemeni judge orders police to find a radical, US-born cleric “dead or alive”, after the al-Qaeda-linked preacher fails to appear at his trial for his role in the killing of foreigners.

2018: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (New York) becomes the youngest person ever elected to the US House of representatives, at 29 years. British actor Idris Elba is named People magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive. Great Britain’s Prince Charles calls slavery “an indelible stain” but stops short of an apology in a speech in Accra, Ghana. Human longevity is less than 10 per cent dependent on genetics, according to a study published in the journal Genetics that is based on 400 million people from Ancestry.com More than 200 mass graves containing thousands of victims of ISIS are discovered in former ISIS-held area, according to a UN report

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Agrippina the Younger (Julia Agrippina), Roman empress (15 AD-59 AD); Suleiman the Magnificent (Suleiman I), Turkish Ottoman sultan (1494-1566); James Naismith, Canadian who invented the sport of basketball in 1891 (1861-1939); Sally Field, US actress (1946- ); Maria Shriver, American journalist and former first lady in California (1955- ); Sandie Richards, Jamaican Olympian and World Champion 4×400 gold medallist (1968- )

– AP/ Jamaica Observer