Today is the 185th day of 2022. There are 180 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1779: French forces take Grenada in the West Indies from the British, who retake it four years later.

OTHER EVENTS

1187: The Arab forces of Sultan Saladin destroy a thirsty and exhausted Crusader army at Hattin in northern Palestine, leading to the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem.

1776: American Declaration of Independence is approved by the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. The day is now celebrated as Independence Day in the United States.

1802: The United States Military Academy opens in West Point, New York.

1824: Turks capture island of Ispara in war with Greeks.

1826: Two major figures of the American Revolution who became U S presidents, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, die — 50 years to the day after the adoption of the Declaration of Independence.

1855: American author Walt Whitman first publishes Leaves of Grass, a landmark in the history of American literature; undergoing numerous revisions, the poetry collection becomes known for its unconventional language and its celebration of the human body and sexual passion.

1862: Lewis Carroll, an Oxford University student, narrates a story to a group of friends during a boat trip. The story is later published as Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

1865: Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is published, though the first print run is soon recalled because of quality issues; a new first edition os released in November.

1884: The Statue of Liberty is presented to the United States by the French in Paris.

1910: In what is billed as the “Fight of the Century”, African American boxer Jack Johnson defeats James Jackson Jeffries, who is considered the “Great White Hope”. His victory leads to nationwide celebrations by African Americans that were occasionally met by violence from whites, resulting in more than 20 deaths across the country.

1934 Hungarian physicist Leo Szilard patents the chain-reaction design for the atomic bomb.

1939: On an appreciation day in his honour, American baseball player Lou Gehrig, who had been forced to retire months earlier due to ALS, gives a memorable speech in which he claims to be “the luckiest man on the face of the earth”.

1946: The Republic of the Philippines is proclaimed an independent country after 47 years of US rule, with Manuel Roxas as its first president.

1957: V Molotov, D J Shepilov and G M Malenkov are expelled from the leadership of the Soviet Communist Party after trying to remove Nikita Khrushchev.

1974: Ethiopia’s Emperor Haile Selassie agrees to military supervision of his Government and speed-up of democratic reforms.

1976: Israeli commandos raid a hijacked airliner in Entebbe, Uganda, and rescue 103 hostages. Four Israelis, seven hijackers and about 20 Ugandan soldiers are killed.

1987: Klaus Barbie, a local Gestapo chief in World War II, is convicted of crimes against humanity in Lyon, France, and sentenced to life imprisonment.

1990: Kremlin lifts 10-week ban on rail transport of foodstuffs into Lithuania, ending an effort to quell the republic’s independence movement.

1991: Former Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze renounces his membership in the Communist Party.

1993: Abkhazian rebels seeking independence from Georgia advance within 15 kilometres (nine miles) of Sukhumi, and both sides report heavy casualties.

1994: Tutsi rebels seize most of Kigali and another key city in Rwanda, ending the worst of the genocide by Hutu militants in those areas.

1997: US spacecraft Pathfinder, carrying an explorer vehicle, lands on Mars. It is the first landing on Mars since 1976.

1999: Pope John Paul II blesses a new church that Roman citizens had promised to build 55 years earlier. On June 4, 1944 Allied troops were poised to enter Rome, citizens prayed for deliverance, and an hour later German troops withdrew from the city.

2000: Angry over British authorities’ decision to restrict traditional Protestant parades in Catholic areas of Northern Ireland, youth set vehicles on fire and police trade gunshots with Protestant protesters in Belfast.

2001: Congolese President Joseph Kabila and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni meet for first face-to-face peace talks in Tanzania as part of an effort to end the three-year war in Congo.

2002: An Egyptian immigrant, armed with two handguns and a hunting knife, fatally shoots two people and injures several others near the El Al Israel Airlines ticket counter at Los Angeles International Airport, before being shot to death by a security guard.

2003: Three suspected Muslim militants attack a Shiite mosque in Quetta, Pakistan, opening fire during Friday prayers and killing 53 people.

2004: Indonesia’s young democracy holds its first direct presidential election, coming six years after President Suharto’s 32-year dictatorship was overthrown.

2006: North Korea test-fires a long-range missile and four shorter-range missiles in an exercise the US terms “a provocation” but not an immediate threat.

2007: British Broadcasting Corporation reporter Alan Johnston is released after nearly four months in captivity in the Gaza Strip, where he was held by the shadowy, little-known militant group, Army of Islam.

2009: North Korea launches seven ballistic missiles into waters off its east coast in a show of military firepower that defies UN resolutions and draws global expressions of condemnation and concern.

2010: Interim President Bronislaw Komorowski appears to have held off a last-minute surge from the identical twin brother of the late Polish president who died in an April plane crash that shocked the country and forced an early election.

2011: A belligerent Ratko Mladic repeatedly disobeys and shouts at judges during an arraignment at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal. Finally, the former Serb is thrown out of the hearing and the court enters not guilty pleas on his behalf to 11 charges of masterminding the worst atrocities of the Bosnian war.

2012: Pakistan’s decision to end a seven-month blockade of NATO troops supplies is a rare bright spot in relations with the US, but disagreements over issues like American drone strikes and Islamabad’s support for Taliban militants still hamper a relationship vital to stability in neighbouring Afghanistan.

2013: France says it has confirmed that the nerve gas sarin was used “multiple times in a localised way” in Syria, including at least once by the regime.

2017: North Korea tests first successful intercontinental ballistic missile into Sea of Japan.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Nathaniel Hawthorne, US author of The Scarlet Letter (1804-1882); Giuseppe Garibaldi, Italian soldier-statesman (1807-1882); Norman Washington Manley, Jamaican national hero, social activist and politician (1893-1969); Louis Armstrong, US jazz musician (1900-1971); Neil Simon, US playwright (1927-2018 ); Geraldo Rivera, TV personality/news correspondent (1943- ); John Waite, singer (1955- ); Malia Obama, daughter of US President Barack Obama (1998- )

– AP and Jamaica Observer