Today is the 56th day of 2021. There are 309 days left in the year.

TODAY'S HIGHLIGHT

1956: Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev denounces late dictator Josef Stalin before Communist Party Congress in Moscow, beginning the “de-Stalinisation” movement.

OTHER EVENTS

1570: England's Queen Elizabeth I is excommunicated by Pope Pius V.

1601: England's Earl of Essex, former favourite of Queen Elizabeth I, is executed for treason after his attempt to start a rebellion fails.

1713: Sweden's King Charles XII is taken prisoner by the Ottoman Sultan.

1779: A militia led by George Rogers Clark routes the British from Fort Sackville in the Revolutionary War Battle of Vincennes in present-day Indiana.

1793: American President George Washington convenes the first Cabinet meeting on record — at his home.

1836: American inventor Samuel Colt patents his revolver.

1862: Nashville, Tennessee is occupied by federal forces during the Civil War; it was the first Confederate capital to fall to the Union.

1870: Hiram R Revels becomes the first black member of the US Senate, as he is sworn in to serve out the unexpired term of Jefferson Davis.

1885: Germany annexes Tanganyika and Zanzibar.

1901: United States Steel Corporation is incorporated by JP Morgan.

1913: The 16th Amendment to the Constitution, giving Congress the power to levy and collect income taxes, is declared in effect by Secretary of State Philander Chase Knox.

1919: Oregon becomes the first state to tax gasoline, at one cent per gallon.

1922: French serial killer Henri Landru, convicted of murdering 10 women and the son of one of them, is executed in Versailles.

1940: A hockey game is televised for the first time, by New York City station W2XBS, as the New York Rangers defeat the Montreal Canadians 6-2 at Madison Square Garden.

1948: Communists stage a coup in Czechoslovakia.

1950: Your Show of Shows, starring Sid Caesar, Imogene Coca, Carl Reiner and Howard Morris, debuts on NBC-TV.

1964: Cassius Clay — who later changes his name to Muhammad Ali — defeats Sonny Liston to become the world's heavyweight boxing champion at age 22.

1970: Russian-born American painter Mark Rothko dies in New York, a suicide, at age 66.

1976: United States vetoes UN resolution deploring Israel's annexation of Jerusalem.

1986: Philippines President Ferdinand E Marcos resigns, brought down by a “people's power” uprising, military revolt, and US pressure.

1990: Nicaraguans vote in an election that leads to an upset victory for opponents of the ruling Sandinistas.

1991: Iraqi President Saddam Hussein orders his forces, under attack by allied ground troops, to withdraw from Kuwait. An Iraqi Scud missile hits a US Marine barracks near the Saudi city of Dhahran, killing 28 soldiers and wounding several others.

1992: Imelda Marcos accepts the Philippine Government's conditions for returning her husband's body.

1993: US Marines and Nigerian soldiers blast at snipers in central Mogadishu, Somalia, in a five-hour battle that kills one Somali.

1994: American-born Jewish settler Baruch Goldstein opens fire inside the Tomb of the Patriarchs in the West Bank, killing 29 Muslims before he is beaten to death by worshippers.

1995: Two bombs blow apart a train car reserved for the military in north-eastern India, killing at least 26 soldiers and wounding more than 30.

1996: Militant Palestinian suicide bomber sets off an explosion on a Jerusalem bus, killing 26.

2001: Peace talks aimed at resolving Burundi's seven-year-old civil war end without resolution. The talks had sought to revive a multiethnic power-sharing agreement signed by many of the warring groups.

2002: Former NBA star Jayson Williams is charged with manslaughter in the shooting death of Costas “Gus” Christofi, a limousine driver at Williams' estate in Alexandria Township, NJ (A jury convicts Williams in 2004 of trying to cover up the slaying; it acquitted Williams of aggravated manslaughter but deadlocked on a lesser charge of reckless manslaughter.)

2003: Two bomb blasts damage the Colombian consulate and Spanish Embassy in Caracas, Venezuela, wounding five people. The explosions come two days after President Hugo Chavez accuses Spain and Colombia of meddling in Venezuela's internal affairs.

2005: Argentina completes the biggest debt restructuring in history, hoping to end its status as an international financial pariah three years after a devastating economic crisis.

2007: In Detroit, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan stresses religious unity during what was billed as his final major speech, saying the world was at war because Christians and Muslims were divided. A female suicide bomber triggers a ball bearing-packed charge, killing at least 41 people at a mostly Shiite college in Baghdad.

2011: Hundreds of thousands pour out of mosques and stage protests across the Arab world, some trying to shake off autocratic rulers and others pressuring embattled leaders to carry out sweeping reforms. The Obama White House breaks decades of tradition, naming Jeremy Bernard the first man to ever serve as social secretary in the female-dominated East Wing.

2012: A gunman kills two American military advisers with shots to the back of the head inside a heavily guarded ministry building, and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) orders military workers out of Afghan ministries as protests rage for a fifth day over the burning of copies of the Quran at a US Army base.

2013: Miguel Diaz-Canel is tapped to be Cuban President Raul Castro's chief lieutenant and likely successor.

TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS

CBS newsman Bob Schieffer (1937- ); actress Diane Baker (1938- ); actress Karen Grassle (1942- ); Latin singer Julio Iglesias Jr (1973- ); comedian-actress Chelsea Handler (1975- )

— AP