Today is the 127 day of 2023. There are 238 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1939: All German children between ages of 10 and 13 are ordered to serve in the Hitler Youth Organisation.

OTHER EVENTS

1242: Russian troops led by the first non-Mongol czar, Alexander Nevsky, defeat Teutonic and Livonian invaders who try to occupy northwestern Russia in the Battle of the Ice. The battle signals the end of Mongol rule of Russia.

1594: Jean Chastel, pupil of the Jesuits, attempts to assassinate France’s King Henry IV.

1614: American Indian princess Pocahontas marries English colonist John Rolfe in Virginia.

1664: Peace Treaty of Westminster ends first Anglo-Dutch War.

1818: At Battle of Maipu, Chilean and Argentine troops defeat Spaniards, sealing Chilean independence.

1881: Britain concludes Treaty of Pretoria with Boers, recognising independence of South African Republic of Transvaal.

1896: Start of the first modern Olympic Games in Athens.

1951: Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are sentenced to death in the United States as atomic spies for the Soviet Union.

1958: Fidel Castro begins “total war” against Batista Government in Cuba.

1971: Pakistan airlifts foreigners from East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, as fighting rages during a revolt.

1975: Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek dies after 47 years in power, first in China and later in Taiwan.

1986: A bomb, blamed on terrorists, kills two and injures 155 as it rips through a crowded West Berlin discotheque popular with US soldiers.

1988: Arabic-speaking hijackers commandeer Kuwaiti Airways plane with 112 people aboard and force it to land in Iran.

1991: Iraq’s ambassador to the United Nations says his Government will accept a UN fact-finding team to investigate the plight of the Kurds.

1992: With the support of the military, Peru’s President Alberto Fujimori suspends constitution and congress, claiming it is necessary to fight corruption, leftist guerrillas and drug trafficking.

1995: Israel launches its first spy satellite, putting it into an orbit that takes it over several Arab countries.

1996: Heavy fighting in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, leaves 17 dead.

1998: The world’s longest suspension bridge, 3,911 metres (12,831 feet) long, opens in Japan, linking Shikoku with the main island Honshu. 5,350 cars cross in the first hour.

1999: Libya hands over to the UN two former government agents to stand trial for the bombing of a Pan Am aircraft over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988. The UN lifts sanctions against Libya the next day.

2000: Japan’s Parliament elects ruling party chief Yoshiro Mori as the new prime minister, ending a political crisis created by the sudden collapse of Keizo Obuchi, who was on life support after suffering a stroke.

2001: A Dutch driver is convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 14 years in prison for the deaths of 58 Chinese immigrants who suffocated in his truck in Dover, England, the previous summer.

2004: A Russian court jury finds arms control researcher Igor Sutyagin guilty of treason for passing secrets to the United States.

2005: Security forces in Saudi Arabia storm a walled compound where Islamic militants had been barricaded for days, killing 14 armed extremists, including top leaders in the Saudi branch of al-Qaeda.

2006: Troops and firefighters join the struggle to shore up dams in several northeastern Austrian towns, as floodwaters continue to rise across the region after flooding hundreds of homes and causing the evacuation of more than 1,000 people.

2007: Fifteen British sailors and marines seized in the northern Persian Gulf by an Iranian force return to England from Iran, where they had been held captive for nearly two weeks.

2008: Morgan Tsvangirai calls on Robert Mugabe to step down as president of Zimbabwe and accuses the longtime ruler of plotting a campaign of violence to bolster his chances of winning a run-off. Armed police bar opposition officials from filing a suit demanding the publication of the results from the presidential election.

2009: The US and its allies seek punishment for North Korea’s defiant launch of a rocket that apparently fizzles into the Pacific Ocean, holding an emergency UN meeting in response to the”provocative act” that some believe was a long-range missile test.

2010: The US Government seeks to fine Toyota a record $16.4 million, accusing the Japanese auto giant of hiding a “dangerous defect” in its slow reporting of faulty gas pedals that have been blamed for unintended sudden accelerations and motorists’ deaths.

2011: Islamic hardliners, some of them heavily suppressed under three decades of Hosni Mubarak’s authoritarian regime, enthusiastically dive into Egypt’s new freedoms, forming political parties to enter upcoming elections and raising concerns that they will try to lead the country into fundamentalist rule.

2012: Pope Benedict XVI denounces priests who have questioned church teaching on celibacy and ordaining women, saying they are disobeying his authority to try to impose their own ideas on the church.

2013: Syrian President Bashar Assad warns that the fall of his regime or the breakup of his nation will cause a “domino effect” that will fuel Mideast instability for years.

2015: One of the gunmen who slaughtered 148 people at a college in Kenya is identified as the law-school-educated son of a Kenyan Government official, underscoring the inroads Islamic extremists have made in recruiting young people to carry out attacks against their own country.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Thomas Hobbes, English philosopher (1588-1679); Joseph Lister, English surgeon, discoverer of antiseptics (1827-1912); Algernon C. Swinburne, English poet (1837-1909); Bette Davis, US actress (1908-1989); Gregory Peck, US actor (1916-2003); Roman Herzog, German president from 1994-1999 (1934-2017 ); Agnetha Faeltskog, member of Swedish pop group ABBA (1950- )

– AP