Today is the 264th day of 2026. There are 101 days left in the year

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1925: St Andrew High School for Girls is established in Jamaica as the Jamaica High School for Girls.

OTHER EVENTS

46 BC: Julius Caesar celebrates the first of four triumphal processions in Rome — over Gaul, Egypt, Pontus and Africa — with leader of the Gauls, Vercingetorix led in chains.

1348: Jews in Zurich, Switzerland, are accused of poisoning wells.

1513: At 17 months James V is crowned king of Scotland in the Chapel Royal at Stirling Castle.

1677: Jan and Nicolaas van der Heyden patent the fire hose.

1780: Traitor, United States General Benedict Arnold gives British Major John André plans to West Point.

1784: The Pennsylvania Packet and Daily Advertiser becomes the first successful daily newspaper in the United States.

1823: The angel, or resurrected being, Moroni appears to Joseph Smith Jr — of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — and instructs him to restore God’s church on earth; four years later to the day Moroni gives Smith Jr a record of gold plates, one-third of which Smith Jr translates into The Book of Mormon.

1872: James H Conyers becomes the first African American admitted to the United States Naval Academy (USNA) at Annapolis.

1885: The Dutch demonstrate for a general voting right.

1893: Frank Duryea drives the first American-made, gas-propelled vehicle.

1913: The first aerobatic manoeuvre, a sustained inverted flight, is performed in France.

1922: US President Warren G Harding signs a joint resolution of approval to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

1930: Johann Ostermeyer patents the flashbulb.

1934: A typhoon strikes Honshu Island Japan, killing 4,000.

1942: Hostages totalling 116 are executed by the Nazis in Paris.

1949: Chinese Communist leaders proclaim the People’s Republic of China.

1972: Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos imposes martial law in the Philippines, beginning a period of harsh authoritarian rule.

The fastest century-maker in history, Jamaican cricketer for the West Indies (1999-2021) Chris Gayle was born on this day, 1979, in the country’s capital, Kingston.

1982: National Football League (NFL) players begin a 57-day strike.

1996: The Carib cinema, one of Kingston, Jamaica’s most famous landmarks, is destroyed by fire.

2004: Construction of the Burj Dubai commences.

2008: The last two remaining independent investment banks on Wall Street, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, become bank holding companies as a result of the subprime mortgage crisis.

2013: Al-Shabaab militants launch a terrorist attack on the Westgate shopping centre in Nairobi; three days later Ghanian poet and novelist Kofi Awoonor is among the 65 dead.

2016: Three genetic studies published in the journal Nature conclude all non-Africans descended from one migration out of Africa 50-80,000 years previously; a genomic study, also published in Nature, finds the Australian Aboriginals to be the oldest-known civilisation on earth.

A migrant boat carrying 450-600 people capsizes off the Egyptian coast; only 163 are rescued.

2018: A fossil of Dickinsonia, from White Sea, Russia, is proven to be the oldest-known animal fossil at 558 million years.

2019: The skies turn red over Jambi province, Indonesia, as the worst illegal forest fires since 2015 burn more than 800,000 acres, creating respiratory problems for a million people.

2021: American President Joe Biden pledges at the United Nations to double financial aid to developing countries, and President Xi Jinping says China will stop coal-fired projects abroad.

McDonald’s announces plans to “drastically” reduce plastic in its Happy Meals by 2025. (The meals make McDonald’s one of the largest toy distributors in the world.)

2022: Western sources (The New York Times) put the number of Russian soldiers who died fighting in Ukraine at 25,000-over 80,000; Vladimir Putin announces partial mobilisation of the Russian population, drafting between 300,000 and 1.2 million men to fight in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which prompts demonstrations around the country.

2023: Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch, at 92, announces he is retiring from the boards of Fox Corporation and News Corporation, leaving his son Lachlan in charge.

2024: Google signs a 20-year deal to buy power from the Three Mile nuclear power plant, the site of a nuclear accident in 1979.

2025: Australia, Britain, Canada, and Portugal announce their support of statehood for Palestine.

Nearly 100,000 attend the memorial service for slain political activist Charlie Kirk at the State Farm Stadium near Phoenix, Arizona, USA; Kirk’s wife Erika, the US president, vice-president, and other Administration officials speak.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Kwame Nkrumah, president of Ghana (1909-1972); Stephen King, American novelist (1947-); Shinzo Abe, prime minister of Japan (1954-2022); Chris Gayle (born Christopher Henry Gayle), Jamaican cricketer for the West Indies (1979- )

– Britannica.com/OnThisDay.com/Jamaica Observer