Today is the 88th day of 2023. There are 277 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1971: US Army Lieutenant William L Calley Jr is convicted of murdering at least 22 Vietnamese civilians in the My Lai massacre; he spends three years under house arrest.

OTHER EVENTS

1461: Edward IV defeats Henry VI for the throne of England in the bloodiest battle of the York-Lancaster conflict.

1549: The city of Salvador da Bahia, the first capital of Brazil, is founded.

1795: Ludwig van Beethoven, at age 24, has his debut performance as a pianist in Vienna.

1814: Jews get equal rights in Denmark.

1830: Spain’s King Ferdinand VII passes a law allowing females to be heirs to the throne.

1867: With the British North America Act, the British colonies of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Canada are united as the Dominion of Canada, and the province of Canada is separated into Quebec and Ontario.

1901: Australia’s first federal elections are held, with the Labour Party winning power.

1943: Rationing of meat, butter and cheese in the United States begins during World War II.

1946: A new constitution goes into effect in the British Gold Coast colony — now Ghana — becoming the first British African colony with mainly Africans in the legislature.

1951: Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage and sentenced to death by a US court for turning over US military secrets to the Soviet Union; they are executed in June 1953.

1961: After a 4½-year trial Nelson Mandela is acquitted of treason in Pretoria Washington, DC. Residents win the right the vote in US presidential elections.

1963: Algerian Premier Ahmed ben Bella orders government seizure of property owned by Europeans who had left Algeria prior to independence and had not returned.

1967: France launches its first nuclear submarine.

1972: The Government of Bolivia orders 119 members of Soviet Embassy staff to leave the country, accusing the embassy of financing leftist rebel movements.

1973: American troops evacuate Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) in South Vietnam as the United States ends its direct military role in the Vietnam War.

1974: Eight Ohio National Guardsmen are indicted on charges stemming from the shooting deaths of four students at Kent State University; they are later acquitted.

1988: A bomb planted in a jeep kills at least four Soviet soldiers in Kabul, Afghanistan.

1989: Two Czechoslovak teenagers hijack a Hungarian airliner from Prague to Frankfurt in an attempt to reach the United States.

1993: More than 2,300 refugees take advantage of a ceasfire and a rare relief convoy to flee the cold and hunger of Srebrenica, Bosnia.

1995: Thousands of Rwandan refugees fleeing violence in Burundi begin a two-day trek towards Tanzania.

1996: In Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, prison inmates put liquid gas canisters around 20 hostages and threaten to explode them unless officials provide guns and getaway cars.

1997: A boat carrying dozens of Albanians seeking refuge in Italy strikes an Italian navy ship and sinks in Adriatic waters; 52 bodies are recovered after the ship is hauled up from the seabed in October.

1999: Canadian ice-hockey player Wayne Gretzky, considered by many to be the greatest player in NHL history, scores the final goal of his career and retires at the end of the season.

2004: Two women set off bombs at a children’s store and bus stop in the Uzbek capital, capping 12 hours of mayhem in which 19 people were killed; it is the first terrorism outbreak in this majority-Muslim country since the secular Government became a staunch US ally after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

2006: Charles Taylor is flown to Sierra Leone as the former Liberian president becomes the first African head of State tried for war crimes by an international court.

2010: Two deadly suicide bombings take place on the Moscow subway at rush hour; at least 38 are killed and more than 60 wounded.

2011: World powers — from the United States to the United Nations, from the Arab League to North Atlantic Treaty Organization — forcefully call for Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi to step down.

2022: In a major victory for Ukraine, Russia announces it is withdrawing its badly mauled forces from around Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Lavrenty Beria, Soviet government official (1899-1953); Sam Walton, retail magnate, one of the wealthiest individuals in American history, founder of Walmart (1918-1992); Giulietta Masina, Italian actress (1921-1994); Eric Idle, British actor-comedian (1943- ); Elle Macpherson, Australian model (1963- ); Lucy Lawless, New Zealand actress (1968- ); Jo Nesbø, Norwegian writer and musician (1960- )

— AP