This is the 60th day of 2023. There are 305 days left in the year.

TODAY'S HIGHLIGHT

1999: Rwandan Hutu rebels, claiming opposition to American and British support of the country's Tutsi Government, abduct eight foreign tourists from the Ugandan rainforest and hack them to death.

OTHER EVENTS

1562: French Huguenots totalling 1200 are slain at the Massacre of Vassy, provoking the first war of religion in France.

1565: Rio de Janeiro is founded by Portuguese Knight Estacio de Sa.

1739: Jamaica's Maroons sign a peace treaty with the British under British Governor Edward Trelawny.

1767: King Charles III expels Roman Catholic Jesuits from Spain.

1790: President George Washington signs a measure authorising the first United States census.

1829: Brigadier General Juan Manuel de Rosas sworn in as governor of Buenos Aires and rules Argentina for 23 years.

1870: War between Paraguay and the combined forces of Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay comes to an end.

1893: Inventor Nikola Tesla first publicly demonstrates radio in St Louis by transmitting electromagnetic energy without wires.

1954: Organization of American States conference first opens in Caracas, Venezuela. Puerto Rican nationalists open fire in the US House of Representatives, wounding five congressmen.

1961: US President John F Kennedy establishes the Peace Corps.

1981: Irish Republican Army member Bobby Sands begins a hunger strike at Maze Prison in Northern Ireland but dies 65 days later.

1985: Julio Sanguinetti is sworn in as constitutional president of Uruguay, ending nine years of military rule.

1988: The South African Government introduces a Bill to outlaw foreign funding of political activity.

1989: The UN General Assembly approves US$416 million for UN's one-year plan to free Namibia from 74 years of South African rule.

1995: Director of Russia's only national television network, Vladislav Listyev is shot and killed on entering his apartment building.

1997: About 5,000 neo-Nazis march through Munich to protest an exhibit on the army's involvement in World War II atrocities.

2003: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-described planner and organiser of the September 11 attacks, is captured in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.

2008: Prince Harry returns to Britain when news of his secret deployment as a forward air commander in Afghanistan is leaked to the press.

TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS

Frederic Chopin, Polish romantic pianist and composer (1810-1849); Yitzhak Rabin, former Israeli prime minister (1922-1995); Harry Belafonte, US singer/actor (1927- ); Lupita Nyong'o, Kenyan-Mexican actress (1983- ); Winston "Burning Spear" Rodney OD, Jamaican roots reggae singer-songwriter (1945- ); Melaine Walker, Jamaican 400 metres hurdler (1983- )

— AP/Jamaica Observer