Today is the 38th day of 2023. There are 327 days left in the year.

TODAY'S HIGHLIGHT

1962: US President John F Kennedy imposes a full trade embargo on Cuba.

OTHER EVENTS

1816: The Congress of New Granada entrusts Simon Bolivar with political and military control in the invasion of Venezuela from Haiti.

1831: The Belgian Constitution is proclaimed.

1943: The US Government abruptly announces that wartime rationing of shoes made of leather would go into effect in two days, limiting consumers to buying three pairs per person per year; the rationing is lifted in October 1945.)

1947: A British proposal for dividing Palestine into Arab and Jewish zones with their Administration as trusteeship is rejected by Arabs and Jews.

1964: Rock 'n' roll's British invasion begins when the Beatles are greeted by thousands of screaming fans on their arrival in New York for their first American tour.

1969: Nigerian planes bomb and strafe a crowded market in a village of rebellious Biafra, killing more than 200 people.

1974: Britain grants independence to the Caribbean island of Grenada.

1984: Space shuttle astronauts Bruce McCandless II and Robert L Stewart go on the first untethered spacewalk.

1986: Haiti's President for Life Jean-Claude Duvalier goes into exile, ending a 29-year family dynasty in the Caribbean republic.

1991: Reverend Jean-Bertrand Aristide is sworn in as Haiti's first democratically elected president.

1992: Pakistan for the first time acknowledges its ability to make nuclear weapons.

1993: Former Premier Laurent Fabius of France asks to be put on trial to end allegations he was responsible for infecting hundreds of haemophiliacs with AIDS-tainted blood.

1995: Ramzi Yousef, the alleged mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, is arrested in Islamabad, Pakistan.

1996: A charter jetliner carrying German tourists crashes into the Caribbean minutes after taking off from Puerto Plata, the Dominican Republic, killing 189 aboard.

1999: King Hussein dies of cancer after nearly half a century on the throne of Jordan; he is succeeded by his eldest son, Abdullah.

2005: Secretary General Kofi Annan suspends the head of the UN oil-for-food programme in Iraq and a senior UN official who dealt with contracts following an independent investigation that accused them of misconduct.

2007: The Episcopal Church names a woman, Reverend Nerva Cot Aguilera, as bishop in Cuba, the first such appointment by the church in the developing world.

2013: Ireland clinches a long-sought agreement with the European Central Bank to restructure the loans used to bail out its failing banks, a deal expected to reduce the national debt by euro 20 billion (US$27 billion).

TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS

Charles Dickens, English novelist (1812-1870); Dmitri Mendeleyev, Russian chemist (1834-1907); Aisingyoro Henry Puyi, last emperor of China (1906-1967); Sir Russell Drysdale, Australian artist (1912-1981); Chris Rock, US actor/comedian (1965- ).

– AP