Today is the 364th day of 2022. There is one day left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

2006: Saddam Hussein, 69, the shotgun-waving dictator who ruled Iraq for a quarter-century and was driven from power by a US-led war that left his country in shambles, is taken to the gallows and executed.

OTHER EVENTS

1777: Bavaria, on death of Maximillian III, passes to Charles Theodore, Elector of Palatine, igniting the War of the Bavarian Succession.

1853: Gadsden Purchase signed with Mexico to sell the southern portion of Arizona and New Mexico to the United States for $10 million.

1903: Some 600 people die in the Iroquois Theater fire in Chicago.

1958: French West African states decide to form a federation within the French community.

1988: Yugoslavia’s Premier Branko Mikulic and entire Cabinet resign following mounting criticism of how they handled the nation’s economic crisis.

1990: Albanian Jews are allowed to begin emigrating to Israel for the first time.

v Israel and the Vatican agree to establish full diplomatic ties.

1996: About 250,000 striking workers shut down vital services across Israel in protests against budget cuts proposed by Prime Minister Netanyahu.

1997: More than 400 people were massacred in four villages in the single worst incident during Algeria’s insurgency. China announces stronger restrictions on the use of the Internet, aiming to curtail the use of e-mail and the World Wide Web among dissidents.

1998: The US Federal Trade Commission approves the US$53-billion merger of British Petroleum Co and Amoco Corp.

1999: A man walks into the office of Pakistan’s largest Urdu-language newspaper and confesses to killing 100 children.

2000: A passenger breaks into the cockpit of a British Airways flight and grabs the controls, sending the Boeing 747 into two violent nosedives before the crew regains control. The plane eventually lands safely.

2002: New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg signs a law banning smoking in almost all bars and restaurants in the city, starting March 30, 2003.

2005: Tropical Storm Zeta forms in the eastern Atlantic Ocean. It is the 27th storm of a record-breaking hurricane season.

2010: Former Israeli President Moshe Katsav is convicted of rape, a dramatic fall from grace for a man who rose from humble beginnings to become a symbol of achievement for Jews of Middle Eastern origin.

2011: The Maldives Government said it has decided to close massage parlours and spas, following an Opposition-led religious protest last week calling for their closure. Sunni Islam is the official religion in the Maldives and practising any other faith is forbidden.

2013: Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro acknowledges that annual inflation had hit 56 per cent.

2016: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announces a slew of incentives to the poor, farmers, women and small businesses in a special new year’s address. He defended his shock decision to abolish high denomination bank notes as the window to exchange old notes closed.

2017: Colombia says it has shipped around 55 tons of ham to Venezuela after protests broke out over shortages of the traditional holiday staple.

2018: Hundreds of Iranian students hold protests for a second day calling for university officials to resign over the December 25 bus crash that killed 10.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Rudyard Kipling, English author (1865-1936); Stephen Leacock, Canadian humorist (1869-1944); Carol Reed, English film director (1906-1976); Bo Diddley, US singer/guitarist (1928-2008); Skeeter Davis, US singer (1931-2004); Tracey Ullman, British actress-singer (1959- ); LeBron James, American basketball player (1984- )

— AP