Today is the 285th day of 2026. There are 80 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

2009: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vows never to allow Israeli leaders or soldiers to stand trial on war crimes charges over their actions during a military offensive in the Gaza Strip, denouncing a United Nations (UN) report in a keynote address to Parliament.

Fourteen years later to the day, Israel says it will not stop the bombardment of Gaza until hostages are released, amid a growing Gaza humanitarian crisis with 338,000 displaced and the population without electricity or water.

OTHER EVENTS

1160: Maurice de Sully is elected bishop of Paris and eventually initiates a plan to build Notre Dame.

1285: Some 180 Jews burn to death as the synagogue in which they are hiding is set ablaze by a mob of Christians in retribution for the alleged crime of “blood libel”, ritualistic bloodletting from a kidnapped child, in Munich, Duchy of Upper Bavaria, Holy Roman Empire.

1517: A copy of Martin Luther’s 95 theses is created, the publication of which begins the Protestant Reformation in Europe; one year later to the day, papal envoy Cardinal Thomas Cajetan interrogates Luther in Augsburg, in a failed attempt to persuade him to revoke his theses.

1773: America’s first asylum opens for persons of insane and disordered minds in Virginia.

1815: Ex-King of Naples Joachim Murat is sentenced to death for treason.

1822: The Empire of Brazil is inaugurated; Prince Pedro of Portugal is proclaimed Emperor Dom Pedro I on his 24th birthday.

1859: Self-proclaimed “Emperor of the USA”, Emperor Norton issues an edict abolishing the US Congress.

1860: British & French troops capture Beijing.

1871: US President Grant condemns the Ku Klux Klan.

1892: The US Pledge of Allegiance is first recited in public schools during Columbus Day.

1901: Theodore Roosevelt renames the “Executive Mansion” as “The White House”; 14 years later to the day he criticises US citizens who identify themselves with dual nationalities.

1918: The Cloquet fire kills 453 and injures or displaces 52,000 people.

1931: The Christ the Redeemer statue opens; built by engineer Heitor da Silva Costa it stands 30 metres high (98 feet), atop Mount Corcovado, and overlooks Rio de Janeiro.

1933: Alcatraz unofficially becomes a federal prison.

1956: The United Kingdom (UK) tells Israel the British will assist Jordan if Israel attacks that country.

1960: Japanese politician Inejiro Asanuma is assassinated with a sword during a live televised debate by 17-year old nationalist Otoya Yamaguchi.

1961: The United States public health service reports an increase in radioactive iodine-131 in milk and fresh food in certain areas of the US because of a fallout from Soviet nuclear tests.

1968: The IXX Summer Olympic Games open at Mexico City, Mexico — the first Olympics in Latin America; Enriqueta Basilio, Mexican track and field athlete, becomes the first woman to light the Olympic flame.

1972: Some 46 sailors are injured in a race riot on American aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk.

1975: Archbishop Oliver Plunkett, martyred in 1681, is canonised in Rome, becoming the first Irish-born saint in 700 years.

1977: The US Supreme Court hears arguments in the “reverse discrimination” case of Allan Bakke, a white student denied admission to the UC (University of California) Davis School of Medicine.

1979: Boston Celtics guard Chris Ford scores the first threepoint basket in National Basketball Association (NBA) history at Boston Garden.

1984: British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher escapes an attempt on her life when an Irish Republican Army (IRA) bomb explodes at a hotel in Brighton, England, killing five people.

1985: The International Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War receives the Nobel Prize.

1991: Pope John Paul II makes his second visit to Brazil in an effort to renew interest in the Roman Catholic Church, after many Brazilian adherents switch to Protestant groups and African religious practices.

1992: A magnitude-5.8 earthquake strikes Cairo, Egypt; at least 510 die.

1997: The Sidi Daoud massacre in Algeria takes place and 43 are killed at a fake roadblock.

1998: American college student Matthew Shepard dies in Fort Collins, Colorado, USA, several days after being beaten by two men and left in the cold in Laramie, Wyoming; Shepard’s homosexuality is believed to have motivated the attack.

1999: American basketball player Wilt Chamberlain, considered one of the greatest offensive players in the history of the game, dies at age 63.

2000: While preparing to refuel in the Yemeni port of Aden, the USS Cole, a US naval destroyer, is attacked by suicide bombers associated with al-Qaeda; 17 sailors are killed and 39 wounded.

2007: Former US Vice- President Al Gore and the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change win the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for raising alarm over global warming.

2013: In Vietnam 15 people are killed by a series of explosions in a fireworks factory.

2016: Wells Fargo announces embattled CEO John Stumpf is stepping down, as the nation’s second-largest bank finds itself roiled by a scandal over its sales practices.

2017: A plague outbreak in Madagascar kills 57, with 684 cases so far reported by the World Health Organization.

2020: China announces it will test the entire city of Qingdao — nine million people — for COVID-19 within five days, after a dozen cases ar discovered.

2022: The UN General Assembly passes a resolution condemning Russia’s attempted annexation of Ukrainian territory.

2024: Spanish researchers, after studying genetic material, reveal Christopher Columbus is probably Spanish and Jewish and born in Valencia, not an Italian from Genoa as he claimed.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Frank “Freddie” Reginald Martin, Jamaican former West Indian cricketer (1893-1967 ); Luciano Pavarotti, Italian tenor (1935-2007); Chris Wallace, US broadcast journalist (1947- ) — OnThisDay.com/ Britannica.com/Jamaica Observer