Today is the 259th day of 2026. There are 106 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1972: The monument for Jamaican National Hero Norman Washington Manley, designed by H D Repole, is dedicated at National Heroes’ Park in Kingston, Jamaica.

OTHER EVENTS

655: Martinus I, the banished pope who served from 649-53, dies.

1380: Charles V, king of France from 1364 and who led the country in a miraculous recovery from the devastation of the first phase of the Hundred Years’ War (1337–1453), dies at age 42.

1498: Tomas de Torquemada, Castilian grand inquisitor during the Spanish Inquisition who burned 10,000 people, dies at 77.

1620: English colonists aboard the Mayflower set sail for America where they found Plymouth, Massachusetts, after 41 men sign the Mayflower Compact.

1795: The British capture Cape Town, South Africa, from the Dutch.

1810: Priest Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla rings the church bells in Dolores, Mexico, issuing a call to arms known as the Grito de Dolores (Cry of Dolores), calling for equality of races, redistribution of land, and the end of Spanish rule; the occasion is celebrated today as Mexican Independence Day.

1847: The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust buys Shakespeare’s birthplace in Stratford-upon-Avon, preserving it as a national memorial to the bard.

1848: Slavery is abolished in all French territories.

Barbados’s Prime Minister Mia Mottley announces the country’s intention to remove Queen Elizabeth II as its head of State and become a republic, today in 2020.

1857: The Federal Constitution of the United Mexican States of 1857 comes into force, establishing individual rights including universal male suffrage and freedom of speech, and removes Catholicism as the official religion, which is fiercely attacked by Pope Pius IX.

1863: Robert College of Istanbul, Turkey, the first American educational institution outside the United States, is founded by Christopher Robert, an American philanthropist.

1869: Golf’s first recorded hole-in-one is scored by Tom Morris at Prestwick’s eighth hole in Scotland.

1908: Carriage maker William C Durant establishes General Motors in Flint, Michigan, USA.

1913: Thousands of women demonstrate for Dutch female suffrage

1915: The United States of America takes control of the customs and finances of Haiti for 10 years.

1920: The “Wall Street bombing” occurs at 12:01 when a horse-drawn wagon explodes on Wall Street, New York, USA, killing 38 and injuring 143.

1926: The Great Miami Hurricane kills 372 in Florida and Alabama.

1928: The San Felipe Segundo/Okeechobee hurricane crosses through The Bahamas as a Category 4 storm, killing 18 as it travels from Puerto Rico to Florida.

1929: Police shoot at strikers in Maastricht, Netherlands, killing two people.

1932: British actress Peg Entwistle commits suicide at 24 by jumping from the letter “H” in the “Hollywoodland” (now “Hollywood”) sign in Los Angeles, California, USA.

The United States of America takes control of the customs and finances of Haiti for 10 years, on this day, 1915.6

1970: King Hussein of Jordan declares martial law following the hijacking of four international airliners by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

1973: Chilean singer, songwriter, and activist Víctor is tortured and killed following the military coup by Augusto Pinochet that overthrows Salvador Allende; Jara subsequently becomes an international symbol of resistance to dictatorship.

1975: Papua New Guinea achieves full independence from Australia.

1979: Russian Bolshoi Ballet dancers Leonid and Valentina Kozlov defect to the United States in Los Angeles, California, USA.

1987: The Montreal Protocol, aimed at regulating the production and use of chemicals that contribute to the depletion of Earth’s ozone layer, is adopted by 46 countries.

1993: Sitcom Frasier — a spin-off of Cheers and starring Kelsey Grammer — debuts on NBC and becomes one of the most popular American television shows of the late 20th century.

1997: Apple Computer Inc names co-founder Steve Jobs as interim CEO.

1998: The Basque separatist organisation ETA announces an indefinite ceasefire after 30 years of terrorist guerrilla attacks in Spain that are blamed for 800 deaths; the peace lasts 14 months.

2005: American physicist Gordon Gould, inventor of the laser, dies at 85.

2009: Mary Travers, American folk singer of Peter Paul & Mary fame (Leaving On A Jet Plane), dies of leukaemia at 72.

On this day in history, 2024, American music mogul Sean Combs is arrested and charged the next day with sex trafficking and other offences.

2012: Anti-Japanese protesters set fire to the Panasonic plant in Qingdao, China.

2014: Barbra Streisand releases the album Partners, featuring duets with other artistes; when it reaches number one Streisand becomes the only recording artiste with a top album in each of six decades.

2015: A total of 700 million malaria cases have been prevented in Africa since the year 2000, according to a report by University of Oxford in the journal Nature.

2020: Barbados’s Prime Minister Mia Mottley announces the country’s intention to remove Queen Elizabeth II as its head of State and become a republic.

2022: The death of Jina Mahsa Amini — an Iranian woman in her early 20s who was in the custody of Iran’s “morality police” for improper clothing — ignites a sustained and widespread protest movement which adopts the slogan: “Woman, Life, Freedom”.

2023: Rolling Stone co-founder Jann Wenner is removed from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s board of directors following disparaging remarks about female and black musicians.

2024: American music mogul Sean Combs is arrested and charged the next day with sex trafficking, racketeering and transportation to engage in prostitution.

2025: Robert Redford, American actor (All The President’s Men et al) and Academy Award-winning director, dies at 89.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Yuan Shikai, general, president and emperor of the Republic of China (1859-1916); James Cash Penney, American department store founder (1875-1971); Lee Kuan Yew, former prime minister of Singapore (1923-2015); Nick Jonas, American singer-songwriter (1992- )

— Britannica.com/ OnThisDay.com/ Jamaica Observer