Today is the 193rd day of 2023. There are 172 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

2007: French First Lady Cecilia Sarkozy visits five Bulgarian nurses sentenced to death in Libya for allegedly infecting hundreds of children with HIV; the diplomatic efforts of Cecilia and husband Nicolas Sarkozy eventually win their release.

OTHER EVENTS

1862: The Medal of Honor, awarded for battlefield bravery, is created for the US Army.

1863: In New Zealand, British forces invade Waikato, home of the Maori King Movement, beginning a new phase of the wars between Maori and Colonial British.

1892: Despite Daniel Lucius “Doc” Adams, president of the New York Knickerbockers Base Ball Club, authoring documents titled The Laws of Base Ball in 1857, which established the essentials of the modern game, Alexander Cartwright is credited as the American inventor of modern baseball in 1860. Cartwright dies of natural causes at age 72 on this day.

1902: Australia’s Parliament passes the Immigration Restriction Act to stop non-European immigration, and gives women the right to vote..

1928: The first televised tennis match takes place.

1913: 150,000 Ulstermen gather and resolve to resist Irish Home Rule by force of arms; since the British Liberals have promised the Irish nationalists home rule, civil war appears imminent.

1957: US Surgeon General Leroy Burney links smoking with lung cancer. Prince Karim, a 20-year-old student at Harvard University, becomes Aga Khan and leader of 20 million Ismaili Muslims following the death of his grandfather.

1960: France agrees to the independence of Dahomey, Niger, Upper Volta, Ivory Coast, Chad, Central Africa and the Congo.

1975: The island nation of Sao Tome and Principe is granted independence from Portugal.

1983: Britain and China begin formal, year-long negotiations in Beijing on the return of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty.

1984: Democrat Geraldine Ferrarobecomes the first woman ever nominated for vice-president by a major US political party.

1985: Singin’ in the Rain, the musical adaptation of the 1952 film, opens at Gershwin Theater, NYC and runs for 367 performances. Doctors discover a cancerous growth in President Reagan’s colon.

1990: Boris Yeltsin resigns from the Soviet Union’s Communist Party during the 28th meeting of the Party Congress.

1991: The five permanent members of the UN Security Council tell Iraq’s ambassador his country must swiftly disclose the extent of its nuclear programme or face serious consequences.

1994: Germany’s highest court clears the way for German forces to take part in military operations beyond the country’s borders, reversing a post-World War II strategy intended to keep the country from becoming a threat.

1995: Among the captured after the fall of Srebrenica, Bosnian Serbs separate men from women and children and take over the UN base that was supposed to protect them.

1998: Zinedine Zidane scores twice as France wins their first World Cup, beating Brazil 3-0 in the final at Stade de France.

1999: The 52-member Organization of African Unity begins a conference in Algeria to address African problems, ranging from a US$220-billion debt to civil conflicts.

2002: UN Security Council approves a resolution that grants US peacekeepers serving in UN missions immunity from prosecution by the International Criminal Court, for at least a year.

2003: Salamat Hashim, the leader of the rebel Moro Islamic Liberation Front, dies; the group had been fighting to establish a breakaway Islamic State in the southern Philippines.

2004: Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon asks the Opposition Labour Party to join his coalition — an alliance that would strongly boost chances for an Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

2005: Uganda”s National Assembly amends the country”s constitution to abolish term limits for the president, making it possible for President Yoweri Museveni to run for a third-consecutive term.

2008: North Korea agrees to disable its main reactor by the end of October and allow international inspections to verify its nuclear disarmament.

2009: President Barack Obama gets a rapturous reception in Ghana from Africans overjoyed at the visit of America’s first black president to a country south of the Sahara.

2012: Approximately 90-155 people are killed after an oil tanker crashes and explodes in Okogbe, Rivers State, Nigeria.

2018: The Republic of Ireland will be the first country to sell off its investments in fossil fuel companies after passing the relevant legislation in Parliament.

2021: At least 92 people die in a fire in a COVID-19 hospital ward in the raqi city of Nasiriya.

2022: Twitter sues Elon Musk after he pulls out of a deal to buy the social media site, accusing him of “trashing it” and being “a model of bad faith”.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Elijah Wedgewood, British pottery maker (1730-1795); Henry David Thoreau, US author-naturalist (1817-1862); Hipolito Yrigoyen, first democratically elected president of Argentina (1852-1933); George Eastman, US inventor (1854-1932); Amedeo Modigliani, Italian artist (1884-1920); Pablo Neruda, Chilean poet and Nobel laureate (1904-1973); Ken Chaplin, Jamaican journalist and football referee (1930-2019 ); Bill Cosby, US actor-comedian (1937- ); Cheryl Ladd, US actress (1951- )

– AP/Jamaica Observer