Today is the 345th day of 2023. There are 20 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1994: The Jamaica Observer becomes a daily newspaper.

OTHER EVENTS

1395: John “Eleanor” Rykener, a male cross-dressing prostitute, is brought to court in London for “committing that detestable, unmentionable, and ignominious vice”, in late medieval England’s only recorded case on same-sex intercourse.

1792: France’s King Louis XVI faces charges of treason and is convicted; he is executed the following month.

1872: Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback becomes America’s first black governor in Louisiana.

1946: The UN International Children’s Emergency Fund (Unicef) is established.

1987: A school bus loaded with children returning from a field trip is split in two when a speeding train hits the vehicle at an unmarked railroad crossing in Cairo; 50 children, six teachers, and the bus driver are killed and at least 58 others are injured.

1990: A 75-vehicle pile-up from two chain-reaction collisions spans a six-mile stretch on Interstate Highway 75 in Tennessee, USA, which was clouded by dense fog; at least 15 people die.

1991: Leaders of 12 European Community nations agree to establish a loose federation with a common foreign policy and single currency by 1999, laying the groundwork for the European Union.

2001: A US federal grand jury indicts Zacarias Moussaoui, a French citizen of Moroccan descent, for conspiracy in the September 11 terrorist attacks — the first indictment directly related to the attacks.

2003: A presidential panel concludes that France should outlaw Islamic headscarves in public schools to halt the burgeoning influence of Islamic fundamentalism and save the secular values that guide modern-day France; it also recommends a ban on other conspicuous religious symbols such as Jewish skullcaps and large Christian crosses.

2006: The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons grants the USA and Russia a five-year extension (until 2012) of the deadline for destroying their stockpiles of chemical weapons, under the Chemical Weapons Convention.

2008: Former Nasdaq stock market Chairman Bernard L Madoff is arrested on a securities fraud charge, accused of running a phony investment business that cost clients billions of dollars.

2010: Thousands of ethnic Russians engage in anti-Caucasian rioting in Moscow’s Manezhnaya Square after an ethnic Russian is killed in a brawl against migrants from the Caucasus.

2011: Former military strongman Manuel Antonio Noriega is flown home to Panama to be punished, once again, for crimes he committed during a career that saw him transformed from a close Cold War ally of Washington to the villified target of a US invasion.

2014: The world’s first penis transplant procedure is performed by a team from Stellenbosch University and Tygerberg Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa.

2015: Playboy magazine publishes its last nude issue, which features Pamela Anderson on the cover.

2016: Gambian leader Yahya Jammeh says he will contest his election defeat in court, after his first election loss in 22 years.

2017: A landmark trial for Huntington’s disease in London announces positive results as it is the first time a drug has been able to slow an incurable brain disorder. Saudi Arabia announces an end to its 35-year ban on cinemas. US Senator Kirsten Gillibrand calls for the resignation of President Donald Trump given that 16 women have accused him of sexual harassment.

2019: India passes a controversial Citizenship Amendment Bill that clears the way for citizenship for immigrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan — but not if they are Muslim.

2020: The first same-sex civil union is registered in Bolivia after a two-year legal battle by activists. Gunmen storm a school in Kankara, Katsina state, northern Nigeria, kidnapping more than 300 students; Boko Haram later claims responsibility.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Hector Berlioz, French composer (1803-1869); Carlos Gardel, Argentine tango singer (1887- 1935); Naguib Mahfouz, Egyptian writer and Nobel laureate (1911-2007); Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Russian writer and Nobel laureate (1918-2008); Rita Moreno, Puerto Rican actress (1931- ); Viswanathan Anand, Indian chess player (1969- ); Hailee Steinfeld, US actress (1996- )

— AP/Jamaica Observer