Today is the 226th day of 2023. There are 139 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

2019: It is raining plastic, a published survey, reveals plastic was found in 90 per cent of rain samples taken in Colorado by the US Department of the Interior and US Geological Survey.

OTHER EVENTS

1385: The Portuguese, led by Blessed Pereira, defeat the Castilians at Aljubarrota, securing the independence of Portugal.

1900: International forces capture Beijing, China, relieving foreigners besieged there for 56 days during the Boxer Rebellion; more than 1,500 Europeans had been killed by the Boxers, who protested western influences. This marked the demise of western occupation in China.

1935: The US Social Security Law is established, setting up a government pension system; two years later the first insurance payments go out to retired and unemployed individuals.

1945: Japan stops fighting, resulting in the end of World War II.

1958: NATO countries announce the relaxation of trade restrictions with the Soviet bloc and China but the United States maintains its trade embargoes on China, North Korea and North Vietnam.

1968: Floods in India claim more than 1,000 lives in seven days.

1973: US bombing in Cambodia ends, marking an official halt to 12 years of combat activity in Indochina.

1987: Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini threatens the United States with punishment, blaming it for the deaths of hundreds of pilgrims in Mecca, Saudi Arabia.

2003: A massive power failure hits eight states in the north-eastern and Midwestern US and eastern Canada, knocking out electricity in an area home to more than 50 million people.

2004: Attackers with machetes and automatic weapons raid a UN refugee camp in western Burundi, shooting and hacking to death at least 180 men, women and children.

2005: A Cypriot airliner filled with vacationers slams into a hill near the ancient city of Marathon, killing all 121 people on-board, including dozens of children, in Greece’s deadliest plane crash.

2008: US President George W Bush signs consumer-safety legislation that bans lead from children’s toys, imposing the toughest standard in the world.

2010: The deadly, waterborne disease cholera surfaces in flood-ravaged Pakistan, the UN confirms, adding to the misery of 20 million people the Government says have been made homeless by the disaster.

2011: Six suicide bombers attack a governor’s security meeting in one of Afghanistan’s most secure provinces, killing 22 people and driving home the point that the Taliban is able to strike virtually anywhere in the country at will.

2012: The United States says China should not use bilateral talks to attempt to “divide and conquer” nations with competing territorial claims in the South China Sea.

2016: Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt wins the 100 metres at the Rio de Janeiro Games, becoming the first person to win the event in three consecutive Olympics; he later claimed an unprecedented third-straight gold medal in the 200 metres.

2017: Cholera has infected more than 500,000 people in Yemen and killed over 2,000 to date, according to the World Health Organization.

2018: A Pennsylvania grand jury alleges 300 “predator priests” abused more than 1000 children over 30 years and Catholic leaders covered it up, following a two-year investigation.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Hans Christian Oersted, Danish physicist (1777-1851); Jacqueline “Jackie” Pusey, JamaicanOlympian (1959- ); Halle Berry, US actress (1966-)

— AP/ Jamaica Observer