Today is the 284th day of 2021. There are 81 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1865: Paul Bogle, leads hundreds in a march from Stony Gut to Morant Bay (which would be known as the Morant Bay Rebellion). They were protesting injustice and widespread poverty under the British Crown.

OTHER EVENTS

1531: Swiss Catholics defeat Protestants at Battle of Kappel, and the Protestant leader Huldrych Zwingli is killed.

1737: Earthquake reports say over 300,000 killed and half of Calcutta in India destroyed. It is now thought to have been an exaggerated account of a hurricane which claimed 3,000 of the city’s estimated 20,000 residents.

1776: The first naval battle of Lake Champlain is fought during the American Revolution.

1797: Dutch fleet is defeated by British off Camperdown, Holland.

1811: The first steam-powered ferryboat, the Juliana, is put into operation in the United States between New York City and Hoboken, New Jersey.

1890: The Daughters of the American Revolution, a non-profit organisation for the descendants of individuals who aided in achieving American Independence, is founded in Washington, DC.

1899: The Boer War begins in South Africa with Transvaal and the Orange Free State attacking the British.

1918: Major tsumani shakes Caribbean.

1933: Latin American countries sign Rio de Janeiro non-aggression pact.

1939: Albert Einstein writes his famous letter to Franklin D Roosevelt about the potential of the atomic bomb. In the letter, he argues the scientific feasibility of atomic weapons, and urged the need for development of a US atomic programme.

1942: World War II Battle of Cape Esperance begins in the Solomon Islands, resulting in an American victory over the Japanese.

1946: Roman Catholic Archbishop Aloysius Stepinatz of Yugoslavia is convicted on charges of provoking racial hatred and of forcibly converting Serbs to Catholicism.

1954: Russia announces it will end its 10-year occupation of Port Arthur by June 1955 and give Communist China sole authority over the Manchurian naval base.

1958: The American lunar probe Pioneer 1 is launched but fails to go as far as planned, falling back to Earth and burning up in the atmosphere.

1963: United Nations condemns repression in South Africa by 106-1 vote.

1968: Apollo 7, the first manned Apollo mission, is launched; a cyclone that strikes Bay of Bengal in India leaves half a million people homeless.

1975: The TV sketch comedy and variety show Saturday Night Live debuts on NBCand becomes a landmark in American television.

1976: Mao Zedong’s widow Jiang Qing and the “Gang of Four” are arrested and charged with plotting a coup.

1982 : The Mary Rose , flagship of King Henry VIII, is raised to the surface after 437 years at the bottom of the Solent. The ship’s remains of mud-caked timber are successfully re-floated and experts begin the long process of restoring the Mary Rose in a dry dock in Portsmouth. The Mary Rose now forms part the maritime museum at Portsmouth and together with HMS Victory attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors each year.

1984: Space shuttle Challenger astronaut Kathy Sullivan becomes the first American woman to walk in space.

1987: A three-day hunt costing US$1.6 million hoping to prove or disprove the legend of The Loch Ness Monster ends this day with no scientific proof except three sonar blips that showed objects in the middle of the 754-foot-deep loch. If Nessie does exist the best guess is that it is a prehistoric reptile, a plesiosaur. Indian peacekeeping troops, using artillery and mortars, kill more than 120 Tamil rebels on Jaffna peninsula in Sri Lanka. Hundreds of thousands advocating for lesbian and gay rights march by the White House and then assemble on the national Mall below the US Capitol. The march is led by about 3,000 people with AIDS, some in wheelchairs, others in chartered buses.

1991: During the confirmation hearings of Clarence Thomas — who had been nominated to the US Supreme Court — American lawyer Anita Hill testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee and accused him of sexual harassment. Her allegations polarised Americans and Thomas was narrowly confirmed, 52–48.

1992: Voters in Lebanon’s Kesrouan district elect five deputies, completing the country’s first parliamentary elections in 20 years. But its legitimacy is eroded with most of the country’s Christians boycotting the vote.

1993: US President Bill Clinton defends his Administration’s foreign policy and assails efforts by members of Congress to limit the president’s authority to commit US armed forces to peacekeeping efforts in foreign countries.

1996: American military forces begin withdrawing from Bosnia.

1998: Drawing criticism from Jewish leaders, the pope canonises Edith Stein, who was born Jewish but converted to Catholicism and died in Auschwitz.

1999: Israel confirms that 400 Cuban Jews were brought to the country in the past five years in an operation that had the blessing of Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

2000: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat meet in Jerusalem with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to mediate a truce and win the return of three Israeli soldiers captured by Lebanese guerrillas. America Online becomes the biggest, richest and most successful Internet company, with nearly 30 million subscribers worldwide paying the monthly fee to connect to the Internet.

2002: US President Jimmy Carter wins the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts at ending the Middle East conflict and acting as a mediator between Egypt and Israel. French Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie says investigators found traces of explosives that indicate an explosion and fire aboard a French oil tanker off the coast of Yemen on October 6 was the result of a terrorist attack.

2004: The UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, expresses concern at the disappearance of high-precision equipment from Iraq’s nuclear facilities that could be used to make nuclear weapons.

2006: Japan orders a total ban on North Korean imports and declares that ships from the impoverished nation are prohibited from entering Japanese ports as punishment for its apparent nuclear test. A small aircraft crashes into a high-rise building in Manhattan’s Upper East Side killing Yankees baseball player Cory Lidle and his flying instructor. The accident caused concern to New Yorkers, raising fears of another terrorist strike until the Federal Bureau of Investigations ruled out any terrorist connections.

2008: A strong earthquake hits Chechnya and other parts of Russia’s North Caucasus, killing at least 12 people and damaging scores of hospitals, schools and other buildings.

2009: A week of terror strikes across Pakistan, capped by a stunning assault on army headquarters, shows the Taliban have rebounded and appear determined to shake the nation’s resolve as the military plans for an offensive against the group’s stronghold on the Afghan border.

2010: The North Atlantic Treaty Organization says US forces may have detonated a grenade that killed a captive British aid worker during a rescue attempt to free Linda Norgrove in eastern Afghanistan. British Prime Minister David Cameron defends the mission, saying his Government authorised it only after learning that Norgrove’s life was in grave danger.

2011: The US Barack Obama Administration accuses agents of the Iranian Government of being involved in a plan to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States.

2020: LA Lakers beat Miami Heat 106-93 in game 6 to win record-equalling 17th title. As well MVP LeBron James becomes first to win the award with three different teams. British Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton wins Eifel Grand Prix at Germany’s Nürburgring to equal Michael Schumacher’s record of 91 Formula 1 victories.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Eleanor Roosevelt, US first lady and Nobel Peace Prize laureate (1884-1962); Francois Mauriac, French writer and Nobel laureate (1885-1970); Daryl Hall, US singer (1946- ); Luke Perry, US actor (1966-2019)

— AP/Jamaica Observer