Today is the 360th day of 2022. There are five days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1985: Terrorists strike at holiday travellers in simultaneous attacks on Israel’s El Al airline at Rome and Vienna airports, killing 16 people and wounding more than 100.

OTHER EVENTS

1831: Naturalist Charles Darwin sets out on a voyage to the Pacific aboard the HMS Beagle. His discoveries during the voyage helped form the basis of his theories on evolution.

1927: Joseph Stalin’s faction wins at All-Union Congress in Soviet Union, and Leon Trotsky is expelled from the Communist Party.

1932: Radio City Music Hall opens in New York City.

1944: In World War II, Soviet forces surround Budapest; US forces smash across the German Bulge in Belgium and relieve US troops under siege at Bastogne.

1945: Foreign ministers of Britain, United States and Soviet Union meet in Moscow and call for provisional democratic government in Korea; the World Bank is created with an agreement signed by 28 nations.

1956: United Nations fleet begins clearing the Suez Canal after the Suez War.

1964: Congo Government charges that officers from Algeria and the United Arab Republic are leading Congolese rebels on Congo’s north-eastern border.

1970: The musical, Hello, Dolly! closes on Broadway after a run of 2,844 performances.

1985: American naturalist Dian Fossey, who studied gorillas in the wild, is found hacked to death at a research station in Rwanda.

1996: Some 60,000 jubilant opposition supporters defy riot police to rally in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, buoyed by international mediators who upheld their victory over President Slobodan Milosevic in local elections.

2000: Animal rights activists toss eggs and jeer as hunters and hounds pursue foxes across a frigid British countryside in traditional post-Christmas hunts.

2005: Israeli aircraft fire missiles on two offices of the militant Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades and an overpass the army says militants cross to reach launching grounds for rocket attacks.

2006: The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court rules state lawmakers cannot be compelled to vote on a proposed constitutional ban on gay marriage.

2007: Pakistan Opposition Leader Benazir Bhutto, 54, is killed by an attacker who shot her after a campaign rally and then blew himself up. The Government later says she died from a skull fracture suffered when her head slammed against her car. At least 20 others are also killed.

2011: Surprised airport workers in Argentina find hundreds of wriggling poisonous snakes and endangered reptiles inside the baggage of a Czech man who was about to board a flight to Spain.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Johannes Kepler, German astronomer (1571-1630); Louis Pasteur, French scientist (1822-1895); Louis Bromfield, US novellist (1896-1956); Marlene Dietrich, German actress (1901-1992); John Amos, US actor (1939- ); Cokie Roberts, US newsperson (1943-2019); Gerard Depardieu, French actor (1948- );

– AP