Today is the 61st day of 2021. There are 304 days left in the year.

TODAY'S HIGHLIGHT

1972: Michael Norman Manley is sworn in as Jamaica's fourth prime minister. 

OTHER EVENTS

1678: French forces of King Louis XIV capture Ghent and Ypres in Belgium.

1776: US Marines fight first battle, capturing British fort in The Bahamas in American Revolutionary War.

1801: Spain declares war with Portugal. It is later called the War of the Oranges after a French general allied with Spain sends oranges to the queen of Spain with the message that he will proceed to Lisbon.

1815: Dominion of Kandyan Provinces, within British Empire, is formed in Ceylon — now Sri Lanka.

1836: Texas declares its independence from Mexico.

1877: Republican Rutherford B Hayes is declared the winner of the 1876 US presidential election over Democrat Samuel J Tilden, even though Tilden won the popular vote.

1909: European powers intervene to prevent Serbo-Austrian war.

1917: Puerto Ricans are granted US citizenship.

1923: Time magazine makes its debut in United States.

1939: Roman Catholic Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli is elected Pope; he takes the name Pius XII.

1955: Egypt and Syria sign defensive alliance.

1956: France recognises independence of Morocco; Pakistan decides to stay in British Commonwealth.

1962: General Ne Win overthrows Premier U Nu in Burmese military coup.

1965: The movie version of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The Sound of Music, starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer, has its world premiere in New York.

1972: US spacecraft Pioneer 10 is launched on mission to explore environs of planet Jupiter.

1975: Terrorist bombing of bus in Nairobi, Kenya, kills 27 people and injures about 100.

1985: The US Government approves a screening test for AIDS that detects antibodies to the virus, allowing possibly contaminated blood to be excluded from the blood supply.

1986: Iran charges that Iraqi warplanes dropped chemical agents on Kurdish village of Baneh in north-western Iran, causing many civilian casualties.

1992: UN General Assembly welcomes nine new members: eight former Soviet Republics and San Marino.

1993: A gangway collapses when passengers board a ferry on the Congo River, drowning at least 147 in the Republic of Congo.

1994: Israeli soldiers kill two Palestinian youths as rage over a massacre of Palestinians in a Hebron mosque spreads to Jericho.

1995: Former Italian Premier Giulio Andreotti is indicted for consorting with the Mafia. The Internet search engine website Yahoo! is incorporated by founders Jerry Yang and David Filo.

1996: Voters slam the brakes on plans to sever links with the British monarchy when they hand one of Australia's biggest-ever election victories to John Howard's conservative coalition.

1997: In Lueneburg, Germany, hundreds of farmers riding flower-decorated tractors join about 10,000 people demonstrating against the storage of nuclear waste.

1998: Serbian police use water cannons and tear gas to break up demonstrations of tens of thousands of ethnic Albanians in troubled Kosovo province, following a weekend that claims 24 lives.

2000: Britain's top law enforcement official rules that former Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet should not be extradited to Spain to stand trial on charges alleging human rights abuses. Pinochet returns to Chile the next day.

2003: French President Jacques Chirac visits Algeria in an effort to improve relations between the two countries. It is the first official state visit by a French president since Algeria won independence from France in 1962 after a brutal eight-year war.

2004: Suicide bombers set off simultaneous attacks on Shiite Muslim shrines crowded with pilgrims in two Iraqi cities, killing at least 143 people.

2005: Britain's Court of Appeal rules that a high school violated a teenage student's human rights by banning her from wearing a traditional form of Muslim dress to class.

2006: Reversing decades of US policy, President George W Bush ushers India into the world's exclusive nuclear club with a landmark agreement to share nuclear reactors, fuel and expertise with the energy-starved nation in return for its acceptance of international safeguards.

2008: Dmitry Medvedev, the man Vladimir Putin hand-picked to be his successor, scores a crushing victory in Russia's presidential election.

2009: President Raul Castro abruptly ousts some of Cuba's most powerful officials, remaking the government in the biggest shake-up since he took power from his brother Fidel Castro in 2008.

2010: The right-hand man of a Hamas leader assassinated in Dubai confirms Israeli claims that his boss supplied weapons to Palestinian militants.

2011: Pope Benedict XVI makes a sweeping exoneration of the Jewish people for the death of Jesus Christ, tackling one of the most controversial issues in Christianity in a new book.

2012: Rebel forces rout troops loyal to Moammar Gadhafi in a fierce battle over an oil port.

2014: Western powers prepare a tough response to Russia's military advance into Ukraine and warn that Moscow could face economic penalties, diplomatic isolation and bolstered allied defences in Europe.

2017: Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson is confirmed as secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development on a Senate vote of 58-41; a few hours later, the Senate backed former Texas Governor Rick Perry to be energy secretary, 62-37. 

TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS

Desi Arnaz, Cuban-born musician, actor (1917-1986); Mikhail Gorbachev, last president of the Soviet Union (1931- ); Jon Bon Jovi, US singer/actor (1962- ); Chris Martin, British singer w/ Coldplay (1977- ); Daniel Craig, British actor (1968- ); Peter Cargill, Jamaican international football player (1964-2005) 

— AP/Jamaica Observer