Today is the 146th day of 2026. There are 219 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1908: At Masjed Soleyman in south-west Persia the first major commercial oil strike in the Middle East is made; the rights are acquired by the United Kingdom.

OTHER EVENTS

451: The Battle of Avarayr between Armenian rebels and the Sassanid Empire takes place; the Armenians are defeated militarily but are guaranteed freedom to openly practise Christianity.

heretic who is to be captured.

1798: The British kill about 500 Irish insurgents at the Battle of Tara.

1828: A mysterious feral child, Kaspar Hauser, is discovered wandering the streets of Nuremberg, Germany.

1857:United States slave Dred Scott and his family are freed by owner Henry Taylor Blow, only three months after US courts ruled against them in Dred Scott v. Sandford.

1887: Racetrack betting becomes legal in New York state, USA.

1924: US President Calvin Coolidge signs a Bill limiting immigration into the US and completely excluding Japanese.

1942: Belgium Jews are required by Nazis to wear a Jewish star.

1943: Edwin Barclay of Liberia becomes the first president of a black country to visit the US.

1948: South Africa elects a nationalist government under D F Malan; the National Party implements the system of apartheid.

1966: Guyana (formerly British Guiana) declares independence from the United Kingdom. A Buddhist sets himself on fire at the US consulate in Hué, South Vietnam.

1972: Trial by jury is suspended in the Republic of Ireland as part of measures when the Special Criminal Court is re-nstituted to deal with crimes arising out of the Northern Ireland conflict.

1978: The first legal gambling casino opens in Atlantic City, USA.

1981: Italian Prime Minister Arnaldo Forlani and his coalition Cabinet resign following a scandal over membership of the pseudo-masonic lodge P2 (Propaganda Due).

1987: The US Supreme Court rules dangerous defendants can be held without bail.

1989: The Danish Parliament allows same-sex marriage

1994: US President Bill Clinton renews trade privileges for China, and announces his Administration will no longer link China’s trade status with its human rights record.

2001: The African Union replaces the 38-year-old Organization of African Unity; the move is meant to bring political and economic integration for 53 African member-nations, similar to the European Union.

2004: The New York Times publishes its admission of journalistic failings and claims its flawed reporting and lack of sceptism during the build-up to the 2003 Iraq War helped promote the belief that Iraq possessed large stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction.

2006: An earthquake in Java kills over 5,700 people and leaves 200,000 homeless.

2007: Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern’s long-dominant party, Fianna Fail, celebrates its sixth-straight election win.

2008: Ethiopia’s Supreme Court sentences an exiled former president — Mengistu Haile Mariam — and 18 officials to death for the thousands of people murdered during Mengistu’s 17-year rule.

2011: A pale and shrunken Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb military commander, is hauled into a courtroom after 16 years on the run to face charges of genocide in ordering the torture, rape and the slaughter of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica in 1995.

2013: Two rockets hit Hezbollah strongholds in Beirut, tearing through an apartment building and peppering cars with shrapnel a day after the Lebanese group’s leader pledges to lift President Bashar Assad to victory in Syria’s civil war.

2018: Ireland votes to repeal their eighth amendment to allow legalised abortion, 66.4 per cent vote “Yes”.

2019: Nine climbers die in a week on Mount Everest, after overcrowding leads to a huge queue to reach the summit.

2020: Costa Rica becomes the first country in Central America to legalise same-sex marriage.

2021: Amazon says it will buy 97-year-old film and television studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for US$8.45 billion.

2022: American actor (Goodfellas, et al) Ray Liotta dies of heart failure at 67.

2023: At least 828 civilians have now died and 3,688 have been injured over six weeks of fighting in Sudan, according to the Sudanese American Physicians Association.

2024: Dispalced Palestinians being housed in a camp in Rafah, Gaza are faced with fire caused by an Israeli airstrike whch kills at least 35 people, mostly women and children.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Lloyd Parks, Jamaican reggae singer and founder/leader of Lloyd Parks and We The People band (1948- ); Jeremy Corbyn British politician (1949- )

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

A map of Guyana. The island (formerly British Guiana) declares independence from the United Kingdom today in 1966.l