Today is the 89th day of 2026. There are 276 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

2006: Portia Simpson Miller is sworn in as Jamaica’s first female prime minister.

OTHER EVENTS

1282: The people of Palermo massacre 2,000 French residents in the Sicilian Vespers, a revolt against the Angevin King Charles I.

1422: Zen teacher Ketsugan performs exorcisms to free the Aizoji Temple in Fukushima, Japan.

1796: Carl Friedrich Gauss, German mathematician, discovers the construction of the heptadecagon.

1814: Joachim Murat issues the Rimini Declaration, which later inspires Italian unification.

1820: A Duc de Richelieu re-establishes censorship of the French press.

1842: Ether is used as an anaesthetic for the first time, by Dr Crawford Long in the United States.

1858: The eraser-topped pencil is patented by H L Lipman of Philadelphia, USA.

1867: The United States buys Alaska from Russia for $7,200,000 (109 million in 2018 dollars), roughly two cents an acre.

1870: The 15th Amendment to the US Constitution, giving black men the right to vote, is declared in effect.

1918: In the first series contested by the new National Hockey League (NHL) the Toronto Arenas beat Vancouver Millionaires 2-1 for a 3-2 series victory.

1923: The Cunard liner RMS Laconia becomes the first passenger ship to circle the globe as it arrives in New York, USA.

1939: Batman debuts in the 27th issue of Detective Comics by DC Comics.

1942: The SS murders 200 inmates of the Trawniki concentration camp.

1945: A total of 289 anti-fascists are murdered by Nazis in Rombergpark Dortmund.

1949: A riot breaks out in Austurvöllur square in Reykjavík when Iceland joins North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

1954: West Indian great Garfield Sobers has his Test Cricket debut versus England at Kingston Oval, Barbados.

1959: A narrowly divided US Supreme Court, in the case of Bartkus v Illinois, rules that a conviction in state court following an acquittal in federal court for the same crime does not constitute double jeopardy.

1963: France performs an underground nuclear test at Ecker Algeria.

1964: The original version of TV game show Jeopardy!, hosted by Art Fleming, premieres on NBC.

1969: Loyalists bomb water and electricity installations in Northern Ireland in the hope the attacks will be blamed on the Irish Republican Armyy (IRA) and elements of the civil rights movement, which is demanding an end to discrimination against Catholics.

1970: Columbia Records releases jazz artist Miles Davis’s influential double album B****es Brew; it becomes his highest-charting title, wins a Grammy, and earns him his first gold record.

1972: Northern Ireland’s Government and Parliament are dissolved by the British Government, and direct rule from Westminster is introduced.

1974: A Chinese jetliner arrives in New York in what is described as the first civilian flight from Chinese mainland to the United States.

1976: On Land Day, six unarmed Palestinians are killed and hundreds are injured at a protest against Israel’s land confiscation.

1975: James Rupert kills 11 members of his family on Easter Sunday in Hamilton, Ohio, USA.

1981: President Ronald Reagan is shot and seriously injured by John W Hinckley Jr in an assassination attempt outside a Washington, DC, hotel — barely two months after his inauguration as the 40th president.

1986: Actor James Cagney dies at his farm in Stanfordville, New York, at age 86.

1987: Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers sells for a record £22.5 million (US$39.7 million).

1988: At the second Soul Train Music Awards, Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston win.

1990: Estonia’s Parliament declares the Soviet Union an occupying power and pledges to seek full independence.

1991: Patricia Bowman of Jupiter, Florida, tells authorities she had been raped hours earlier by William Kennedy Smith, the nephew of Senator Edward Kennedy, at the family’s Palm Beach estate; Smith is later acquitted at trial.

1995: Pope John Paul II issues the 11th encyclical of his papacy in which he condemns abortion and euthanasia as crimes that no human laws can legitimise.

1996:
West Indies Brian Lara hits a 146 cricket not out in a One-Day International vs New Zealand at Port-of-Spain, Trinidad.

1998: Rolls-Royce is purchased by German automaker BMW for US$570 million.

1999: Talks with a Russian official fail to move President Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia to accept a peace offer with NATO, which expands the range of air strike targets to include ministry buildings in Belgrade.

2001: At 15 years and nine months American swimmer Michael Phelps breaks the 200m butterfly world record at the US World Championship trials at Austin, Texas; he becomes the youngest male to set a world mark.

2003: Worldwide anti-war protests continue during the second week of the US-led invasion of Iraq, with major demonstrations in Indonesia, Pakistan and South Korea.

2005: British lawmakers say the death toll in Sudan’s Darfur region has been underestimated and is likely to be around 300,000, calling attacks against civilians “no less serious” than genocide.

2007: Nepal’s seven ruling political parties and the country’s former Maoist rebels agree to form a joint Government, the latest step in ending a decade of civil war.

2010: The world’s largest atom smasher throws together minuscule particles racing at unheard of speeds in conditions simulating those just after the Big Bang — a success that kick-starts a mega-billion-dollar experiment that could one day explain how the universe began.

2011: Fears about contaminated seafood spread despite reassurances that radiation in the waters off Japan’s troubled atomic plant pose no health risk, as the country’s respected emperor consoles evacuees from the tsunami and nuclear emergency zone.

2019: Swedish gamer and YouTuber PewDiePie is overtaken by Indian channel
T-Series
as the YouTube channel with the most subscribers (both on 92 million).

2020: The International Olympic Committee announces the postponed 2020 Summer Olympic Games will be held July 23-August 8 in 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

2022: A State memorial service is held for Australian cricketing great Shane Warne at Melbourne Cricket Ground; it is attended by 50,000 mourners.

2023: Key figures in artificial intelligence — including Elon Musk and Steve Wozniak — sign an open letter warning that the race to develop AI systems is out of control, and ask for a suspension of at least six months.

2024: Casey Benjamin, American R&B, hip hop saxophonist, and songwriter (The Robert Glasper Experiment), dies at 45.

2025: Lee Montague (Leonard Goldberg), British stage and screen actor in The Holocaust (Uncle Sasha), dies at 97.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Francisco Goya, Spanish artist (1746-1828); Robert Bunsen, German chemist of Bunsen burner fame (1811-1899); Vincent van Gogh, Dutch painter known for works that convey the anguish of a mental illness (1853-1890); Tracy Chapman, US singer (1964- ); Norah Jones, US singer (1979- )

— AP/Jamaica Observer/ OnThisDay.com/Britannica.com

Today in 1954, West Indian legendary cricketer Garfield Sobers makes his Test Cricket debut vs England at Kingston Oval in Barbados.

West Indies cricketing great Brian Lara hits 146 not out during a One-Day International vs New Zealand at Port of Spain, Trinidad, today in 1996.