This is the 8th day of 2024. There are 358 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1998: Ramzi Yousef, an Arab of uncertain nationality, is sentenced to life in prison plus 240 years for masterminding the World Trade Center bombing in New York that killed six people in 1993.

OTHER EVENTS

1324: Marco Polo, Italian explorer, dies at 70 years old.

1654: Ukraine joins Russia.

1806: Britain occupies Cape of Good Hope.

1912: The African National Congress is founded in Bloemfontein.

1915: Heavy fighting breaks out in areas of Assee Canal in Belgium and Soissons, France, in World War I.

1926: Ibn Saud becomes king of Hejaz on King Hussein’s expulsion and changes the name of the kingdom to Saudi Arabia.

1964: US President Lyndon Johnson declares an “unconditional war on poverty in America”.

1973: Secret peace talks between the United States and North Vietnam resume near Paris.

1974: The Khmer Rouge in Cambodia intensify pressure on Phnom Penh with strikes north and south of the capital.

1976: The Indian Government suspends basic rights guaranteed by the constitution: freedom of speech; freedom of assembly; freedom of form associations and labour unions; the right to move freely and to live in any part of the country; the right to own property; and the right to pursue any profession, trade, or business.

1982: Settling an antitrust lawsuit from the US Justice Department, the American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) monopoly divests itself of the 22 regional Bell System companies.

1989: Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev says the Kremlin is besieged by financial problems that are sapping his reforms.

1990: An East German official discloses that 60,000 members of the secret police are still on the Government’s payroll despite the previous month’s pledge that the organisation would be dismantled.

1992: US President George H W Bush collapses to the floor at a State dinner in Tokyo; the White House says the cause is a stomach flu.

1993: Michael Jordan’s game-high 35 points leads Chicago to a 120-95 win over Milwaukee and gives Jordan exactly 20,000 points in the 620th game of his NBA career — the second-fastest player to reach the milestone after Wilt Chamberlain achived the same in his 499th game.

1996: A cargo plane crashes into a crowded market in Kinshasa, Zaire (Congo), killing 255 people by the official count, though the unofficial death toll reaches 1,000. François Mitterrand, president of France, dies.

2003: A US Court of Appeals rules that US citizens detained in combat abroad could be held indefinitely, without access to a lawyer, with only “limited judicial inquiry” into their detention.

2004: Britain bans airlines from Albania, Sierra Leone, Equatorial Guinea, Gambia, Liberia, Tajikistan, Congo, and Cameroon from flying in British airspace, citing inadequate safety and security regulations.

2005: More than 100 police and security agents, backed by five armoured personnel carriers, surround a house in the restive southern Russian region of Ingushetia and kill five alleged militants in a shoot-out.

2006: A US Army Black Hawk helicopter crashes and kills all 12 Americans believed to be aboard, while five marines die in weekend attacks in Iraq.

2007: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announces plans to nationalise the country’s electrical and telecommunications companies, one of his boldest moves in trying to transform Venezuela into a socialist State. For a second-consecutive day, in the midst of India”s Ardh Kumbh Mela celebrations that involve pilgrims” ritual bathing in the Ganges River, Hindu holy men, or sadhus, protest the pollution of the river, saying it is too dirty to wash away sins.

2008: Sudanese troops shoot a UN convoy in Sudan’s war-torn Darfur region, destroying a fuel tanker and wounding a driver in the first attack against the peacekeepers since their mission began earlier in January.

2009: Venezuela’s central bank reports that the country’s rate of inflation in 2008 was 30.9 per cent higher than it had been for more than a decade.

2010: US Department of Labor reports that the unemployment rate in December 2009 remained at 10 per cent but that the economy lost 85,000 jobs.

2011: Spain’s leading broadcaster says it will no longer show the country’s centuries-old tradition of bullfighting, in order to protect children from viewing violence. US Representative Gabby Giffords is shot during an assassination attempt; although she survives, six others are killed.

2012: Iran begins uranium enrichment at a new underground site built to withstand possible airstrikes, a leading hard-line newspaper reports, in another show of defiance against Western pressure to rein in Tehran’s nuclear programme.

2013: US Barack Obama Administration officials say publicly for the first time that the US might leave no American troops in Afghanistan after the end of combat in December 2014, an option that defies the view of Pentagon officials.

2014: President Nicolas Maduro hastily gathers State governors and mayors to talk about the country’s violent crime, amid outrage over the killing of a popular soap opera actress and former Miss Venezuela.

2015: Sri Lanka’s long-time President Mahina Rajapaksa acknowledges that he has been defeated by a one-time political ally, signalling the fall of a family dynasty and the rise of former Cabinet Minister Maithripala Sirisena.

2016: Mexican criminal Joaquín Guzmán (“El Chapo”), head of the Sinaloa drug cartel, is captured in Los Mochis after escaping prison some six months earlier; he is later extradited to the United States where he is convicted of various crimes.

2018: The self-declared Republic of Somaliland passes its first-ever law against rape. 2018 US record year for cost of natural disasters announced – $306 billion in 2017

2020: Duke and Duchess of Sussex announce they are stepping back as “senior” royals, will work towards becoming financially independent.

2021: Twitter bans US President Donald Trump permanently “due to the risk of further incitement of violence”. US Speaker Nancy Pelosi demands President Donald Trump’s resignation or he will face a second impeachment, calling also for Vice-President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove him in the wake of the January 6 attack of the Capitol.

2023: Supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro attack Brazilian government buildings including the high court and Presidential Palace, with over 1500 later arrested.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Su Shi one of China’s greatest poets and essayists, who was also an accomplished calligrapher and a public official (1037-1101).St. Maksymilian Maria Kolbe Polish Martyr (1894 – 1941); Jose Ferrer, Puerto Rican-born actor-director (1912-1992); Elvis Presley, US singer (1935-1977); Shirley Bassey, Welsh-born singer (1937- ); David Bowie, English singer-actor (1947-2016); 1967 R. Kelly American musician; Gaby Hoffman, US actress (1982- ); 1984 Kim Jong-Un North Korean political official

— AP