Today is the 306th day of 2024. There are 60 days left in the year

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1981: The Caribbean islands of Antigua and neighbouring Barbuda form an independent state, ending nearly 350 years of British rule.

OTHER EVENTS

1512: Michelangelo paintings on the ceiling of the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel are exhibited.

1604: William Shakespeare’s tragedy Othello is first presented, at Whitehall Palace in London.

1755: Earthquake rocks Lisbon, Portugal, killing 60,000 people, many in collapsed churches.

1918: The Hapsburgs, the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, comes to an end after King Charles renounces his share in State affairs.

1950: Two Puerto Rican nationalists try to force their way into Blair House in Washington to assassinate President Harry Truman. The attempt fails and one of the pair is killed.

1952: The United States explodes the first hydrogen bomb at Eniwetok in the Marshall Islands.

1954: The north African nation of Algeria begins its rebellion against French rule.

1968: US military halts all air, naval and artillery bombardment of Vietnam. But US reconnaissance flights over the North continue.

1975: Chinese troops ambush Indian security patrol along India’s northern border, killing four men in the first flare-up between the two countries in eight years.

1987: Top leader Deng Xiaoping resigns from the governing body of China’s Communist Party in order to allow his reform-minded proteges to consolidate power.

1989: After travel restrictions are lifted, hundreds of East Germans flock to the West German embassy in Prague seeking passage to the West.

1990: The world’s largest industrial countries agree to phase out dumping waste into the sea by 1995.

1991: Thirteen members of the Canadian military are rescued after spending more than 40 hours stranded in the Arctic after their plane crashed. Five additional crew members, including the pilot, survived the crash but froze to death before they were rescued.

1992: Russia sends more troops to the Caucasus region after fighting flares between Ingush and Ossetian forces.

1993: In the worst clashes since the Russians were drawn into Georgia’s civil war, Russian soldiers kill several rebels trying to oust Georgian leader Eduard Shevardnadze.

1996: Rwandan and Zairian forces bombard each other with artillery along the border, while rebels in Zaire supported by Rwanda close in on the town of Goma.

1997: Indonesia closes 16 banks left insolvent by Asia’s financial problems.

1998: Rescue workers discover the remains of villagers killed when a crater lake overflowed and collapsed in Nicaragua, adding hundreds to the estimated thousands killed in the flooding following Hurricane Mitch.

1999: China agrees to work with conservation groups to stop the use of endangered plants and animals like rhinoceros and tiger parts for medicines and traditional cures.

2001: North Atlantic Treaty Organization member Turkey becomes the first Muslim nation to commit troops to the war against Afghanistan.

2007: Tropical Storm Noel drenches the central Caribbean, killing at least 107, destroying at least 20,000 homes and causing crop damage in the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Cuba amounting to tens of millions of dollars.

2008: Tutsi-led rebels tighten their hold on newly seized swaths of eastern Congo.

2011: Syria has planted land mines along parts of its border with Lebanon, further sealing itself off from the world and showing just how deeply shaken Bashar Assad’s regime has become since an uprising began nearly eight months ago.

2012: Israel acknowledges it killed Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s deputy in a 1988 raid in Tunisia, lifting a 25-year veil of secrecy and allowing a rare glimpse into the shadowy world of secret operations.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Benvenuto Cellini, Italian artist (1500-1571); Francis Hutcheson, Scottish philosopher (1694-1746); Nicholas Boileau, French poet (1636-1711); Victoria de los Angeles, Spanish soprano (1923-2005); Marcia Wallace, US actress (1942-2013)

— AP