This is the 18th day of 2023. There are 347 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

2007: A woman who disappeared in the jungles of north-eastern Cambodia is found 19 years later. The woman — identified as Rochom P’ngieng, 27 — does not speak any intelligible language, but is recognised by a village policeman who claims to be her father.

OTHER EVENTS

1983: The International Olympic Committee officially reinstates the gold medals of American athlete Jim Thorpe who had won the decathlon and the pentathlon at the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm but was later deprived of his medals over allegations that he was not an amateur athlete.

1986: Martin Luther King, Jr Day is first celebrated as a national holiday.

1989: Thousands of Czechoslovaks converge on Prague’s central Wenceslas Square chanting “freedom”, “truth”, and “human rights” on the fourth-consecutive day of public dissent.

1990: Peggy McMartin Buckey is cleared of 52 child molestation charges.

1991: Jordan’s Parliament denounces allied attacks on Iraq and urges Arab and Islamic nations to strike back at the US and its coalition partners.

1992: More than 100,000 people attend Kenya’s first legal anti-government rally in 22 years.

1995: A US jury awards more than 9,000 victims of torture under the regime of the late Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos with US$766 million from the Marcos estate.

1996: “Princess of Rock” Lisa Marie Presley files for divorce from “King of Pop” Michael Jackson in New York City.

1997: Norway’s Boerge Ousland emerges on the Pacific edge of Antarctica to become the first person to cross the continent alone and unaided.

2000: Helmut Kohl resigns as honorary chairman of the Christian Democratic Union, brought down by a campaign financing scandal that marked the stunning denouement of one of Europe’s most respected statesmen and the man who reunited Germany.

2002: The Sierra Leone Government declares the country’s 11-year-old civil war, which killed about 50,000 people, over.

2006: President Laurent Gbagbo calls on his supporters to end days of violent street protests that roiled Ivory Coast’s Government-held south, telling protesters to go home and asking fearful workers to return to their jobs.

2008: Maasai fighters in Kenya battle rival tribesmen loyal to President Mwai Kibaki on the third, final, and bloodiest day of protests over Kenya’s disputed election.

2009: Israeli troops begin to withdraw from Gaza after their Government and Hamas militants declare an end to a three-week war.

2011: The UN tribunal investigating the assassination of a former Lebanese prime minister warns against speculating about the sealed indictment as a quiet show of force by Hezbollah rattles nerves amid fears the militant group will react violently if accused. The first director of the US Peace Corps (1961–66), American diplomat and administrator R Sargent Shriver, dies at age 95.

2012: Italians tally 11 dead and, 21 missing from a cruise ship disaster in which the US$450-million Costa Concordia slammed into a reef and flopped on its side off the tiny Italian island of Giglio after the captain made an unauthorised detour on his route.

2016: The world’s 62 richest people are as wealthy as half the world’s population, according to a report published by Oxfam

TODAY’S BITRTHDAYS

Francois Michel Detellier, French statesman (1641-1691); A A Milne, English humorist who originated Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh stories (1882-1956); Cary Grant, English-American actor (1904-1986); Chun Doo-hwan, former South Korean president (1931- 2021); Ras Daniel Heartman (Lloyd George Roberts), Jamaican artist and religious leader (1942-1989); Paul Keating, former Australian prime minister (1944- ); Veerappan (Koose Muniswamy Veerappan) Indian criminal (1952-2004 ); Kevin Costner, US actor-director (1955- ); Jesse L Martin, US actor (1969- )

— AP/Jamaica Observer