Today is the 68th day of 2022. There are 297 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1992: A demonstration against Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic and the war in Croatia gathers 50,000 people in Belgrade.

OTHER EVENTS

1905: Japan defeats Russian forces at Mukden.

1916: Mexican rebel Francisco Villa attacks Columbus, a town in the US state of New Mexico, setting off a punitive US invasion of Mexico.

1933: Congress, called into special session by President Franklin Roosevelt, begins its 100 days of enacting New Deal legislation.

1970: United States declines to recognise new white-ruled Republic of Rhodesia and closes consulate in that African nation. After independence a decade later, the country was renamed Zimbabwe.

1990: Two Germanys begin preliminary reunification talks.

1994: Irish Republican Army launches first of a series of mortar attacks on Heathrow Airport in London.

1995: The United States and its allies sign a deal to supply North Korea with two nuclear reactors.

1998: A Bosnian Serb pleads guilty to a crime against humanity for raping four Muslim women in 1992, resulting in the first rape conviction at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands.

2002: David Trimble, first minister of Northern Ireland, calls for a referendum on whether the province should remain part of Britain, as advocated by unionists, who are mostly Protestant; or merge with the Republic of Ireland, as desired by Roman Catholic nationalists.

2003: Thai police say nearly 1,500 people were killed during a nationwide crackdown on methamphetamines.

2006: Argentina’s air force acknowledges for the first time that some of its members committed abuses during the country’s Dirty War, a seven-year crackdown on dissent that erupted 30 years ago.

2014: Russian President Vladimir Putin defends the separatist drive in the disputed Crimean Peninsula as in keeping with international law, after the Kremlin increases its military presence in the region.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Amerigo Vespucci, Italian explorer for whom America is named (1451-1512); Yuri Gagarin, Soviet cosmonaut, first man in space (1934-1968); Raul Julia, Puerto Rican actor (1940-1994); Juliette Binoche, French actress (1964- ); Emmanuel Lewis, US actor (1971- )

— AP