Today is the 218th day of 2024. There are 148 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1962: At midnight the Union Jack flag is lowered and the new flag of Independent Jamaica is unfurled and hoisted.

OTHER EVENTS

1772: In St Petersburg, rulers of Russia, Prussia, and Austria sign the first of three partitions, ending Poland’s sovereign rule until 1918.

1861: The US federal government levies an income tax for the first time.

1884: The cornerstone of the Statue of Liberty is laid at the entrance to New York harbour.

1914: The first electric traffic light is installed in the USA on the corner of East 105th Street and Euclid Avenue in Cleveland, Ohio.

1936: American athlete Jesse Owens wins the 200m in a world record time of 20.7 seconds, his third gold medal of the Berlin Olympics.

1944: More than 1,000 Japanese, taken as prisoners of war by Australia, unsuccessfully attempt to escape from a camp in Cowra, New South Wales; 234 are killed and 108 wounded.

1949: An earthquake in Ecuador takes about 6,000 lives.

1954: Iran and eight Western oil companies agree to reactivate Iran’s frozen oil industry, ending a three-year battle that bankrupted the country and severed its relations with Britain.

1960: Upper Volta — now Burkina Faso (which means Land of Incorruptible People), a landlocked country in western Africa — proclaims its independence on this day in 1960, ending more than 60 years of French rule.

1962: US movie star Marilyn Monroe is found dead in the bedroom of her Los Angeles home.

1963: United States, Britain, and Soviet Union sign a treaty outlawing nuclear tests in atmosphere, in space, and under water.

1967: Laurel Williams is crowned Miss Jamaica.

1969: US space probe Mariner 7 flies by Mars, sending back unprecedented photographs and scientific data.

1973: Palestinian “Black September” guerrillas attack a line of travellers at Greece’s Athens airport with grenades and machine guns, killing three and wounding 55.

1977: Ten family members of the late Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie escape from house arrest in Addis Ababa and reach Sweden; reprisals against Selassie’s family and political associates have been taking place since his overthrow in 1974.

1981: US President Ronald Reagan fires more than 11,000 air traffic controllers who were on strike.

1991: Iraq admits to a UN inspection team that it carried out germ warfare research for four years, but claims it abandoned research shortly after the 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

1992: Nelson Mandela leads 100,000 blacks in Pretoria in a protest to end white rule.

1996: US President Bill Clinton signs a Bill to punish foreign businesses that invest in Iran and Libya.

1997: A Korean Air jumbo jet carrying 254 people slams into a mountain in Guam while trying to land during a night-time thunderstorm; only 26 people survive.

2001: Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban jail eight foreign aid workers for allegedly preaching Christianity in the Muslim nation. American runner Maurice Green wins the world championship 100m sprint for the third-consecutive time, in of 9.82 sec.

2006: Warren Moon becomes the first black quarterback to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.

2008: An American woman receives five puppies cloned from her beloved late pitbull, becoming the inaugural customer of a South Korean company that says it is the world’s first successful, commercial, canine-cloning service.

2009: Former US President Bill Clinton leaves North Korea with American journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee after having secured a pardon for them from North Korean leader Kim Jong Il; Ling and Lee had been sentenced to 12 years of hard labour for having entered North Korean territory.

2010: Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin signs a decree banning the export of grain from August 15 through the end of the year because of the continuing drought, which has decimated the wheat harvest.

2011: Thai businesswoman and politician Yingluck Shinawatra is elected prime minister of Thailand, becoming the first woman to hold that post.

2012: Jamaican sprint superstar Usain Bolt wins the 100m at the London Olympics in 9.63, besting the record he set in 2008 Olympics.

2013: Major League Baseball bans New York Yankees infielder Alex Rodriguez for 211 games as a result of the Biogenesis Laboratories scandal. The world’s first bovine stem cell lab-grown burger is eaten in London

2017: Jamaican sprint super-star Usain Bolt finishes third behind Justin Gatlin and Christian Coleman in his final individual race, the 100m at IAAF World Championships in London.

2018: Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull declares “now we are a land of droughts” as 99 per cent of New South Wales is affected

2019: American writer Toni Morrison, who earned a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993 for novels that examine the black experience (particularly the black female experience) within the black community, dies at age 88.

2019: A widespread strike in Hong Kong and demonstrations against Chinese policy towards the territory bring huge disruption, including the cancellation of 200 flights.

2021: New Zealand canoeist Lisa Carrington wins her third Olympic gold medal of the Tokyo Games by winning the K-1 500m, her fifth career gold.

2022: Fire breaks out at a Matanzas fuel depot, Chile, after lightning hits fuel tanks; 16 firefighters are subsequently killed in possibly the country’s worst-ever fire.

2023: A waterfront brawl in Montgomery, Alabama, begins when national attention zeroes in on an incident wherein a black riverboat captain is attacked by white boaters, raising issues about racial solidarity.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Guy de Maupassant, French writer (1850-1893); Neil Armstrong, US astronaut and first man to set foot on moon (1930-2012); Patrick Ewing, Jamaican-born American basketball player and coach (1962- ); Marine Le Pen, French politician (1968- )

– AP/Jamaica Observer