Today is the 68th day of 2023. There are 297 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1992: A demonstration against Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic and the war in Croatia gathers 50,000 people in Belgrade.

OTHER EVENTS

1566: David Rizzo, confidential secretary to Mary Queen of Scots, is murdered.

1661: Cardinal Mazarin dies in France and King Louis XIV begins personal rule.

1715: Portugal ratifies Peace of Utrecht, ending its war with Spain.

1796: Napoleon Bonaparte, the future emperor of France, marries Josephine de Beauharnais.

1846: Treaty of Lahore ends first Sikh War in India, whereby Britain gains additional territory.

1860: After centuries of isolation and years of delicate negotiations, Japan establishes diplomatic relations with the United States. The event is marked by Japanese Ambassador Niimi Buzennokami’s arrival in San Francisco.

1905: Japan defeats Russian forces at Mukden.

1916: Mexican rebel Francisco Villa attacks Columbus, a town in the US state of New Mexico, setting off a punitive US invasion of Mexico.

1919: Britain deports Egyptian independence leader Saad Zaghlul to Malta. Britain grants Egypt nominal independence in 1922.

1933: Congress, called into special session by President Franklin Roosevelt, begins its 100 days of enacting New Deal legislation.

1942: Japanese complete conquest of Dutch island of Java in Indonesia during World War II.

1945: US B-29 bombers launch incendiary bomb attacks against Japan, killing 80,000 people and leaving one million homeless in Tokyo.

1959: Unsuccessful army revolt ends in Mosul, Iraq.

1969: Lieutenant General Moneim Riad, chief of staff of Egypt’s armed forces, is killed during Israeli-Egyptian gun battle across Suez Canal.

1970: United States declines to recognise new white-ruled Republic of Rhodesia and closes consulate in that African nation. After independence a decade later, the country was renamed Zimbabwe.

1990: Two Germanys begin preliminary reunification talks.

1991: Yugoslav military moves into Belgrade with dozens of tanks after thousands of anti-communist rebels clash with police in fierce street battles, leaving at least two people dead.

1994: Irish Republican Army launches first of a series of mortar attacks on Heathrow Airport in London.

1995: The United States and its allies sign a deal to supply North Korea with two nuclear reactors.

1998: A Bosnian Serb pleads guilty to a crime against humanity for raping four Muslim women in 1992, resulting in the first rape conviction at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands.

2001: Ethnic Albanian rebels attack Macedonian forces near a northern village, trapping senior government officials in a remote area despite US moves to cut the flow of supplies to the insurgents from Kosovo.

2002: David Trimble, first minister of Northern Ireland, calls for a referendum on whether the province should remain part of Britain, as advocated by unionists, who are mostly Protestant; or merge with the Republic of Ireland, as desired by Roman Catholic nationalists.

2003: Thai police say nearly 1,500 people were killed during a nationwide crackdown on methamphetamines.

2004: Pakistan test-fires its most advanced missile, capable of carrying a nuclear warhead deep into arch-rival India.

2005: A morning snack of cassava — a root that turns into poisonous cyanide if not prepared correctly — kills 27 and sickens 100 children at an elementary school in the south-central Philippines.

2006: Argentina’s air force acknowledges for the first time that some of its members committed abuses during the country’s Dirty War, a seven-year crackdown on dissent that erupted 30 years ago.

2008: Malaysia’s Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi says he does not intend to quit despite unprecedented electoral losses that gave the Opposition control of five states and one-third of the parliament.

2009: Chinese ships surround and harass a US Navy mapping ship, strewing debris in its path.

2010: Turkey’s leaders pledge to build quake-proof homes after a magnitude 6 temblor shatters mud-brick homes in the eastern part of the country, killing 51 people.

2011: Discovery ends its career as the world’s most flown spaceship, returning from orbit to Cape Canaveral for the last time and taking off in a new direction as a museum piece.

2012: A high-profile international mission to end the Syrian crisis stumbles before it begins as the Opposition rejects calls by UN envoy Kofi Annan for dialogue with resident Bashar Assad as pointless and out of touch after a year of violence.

2014: Russian President Vladimir Putin defends the separatist drive in the disputed Crimean Peninsula as in keeping with international law, after the Kremlin increases its military presence in the region.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Amerigo Vespucci, Italian explorer for whom America is named (1451-1512); Yuri Gagarin, Soviet cosmonaut, first man in space (1934-1968); Raul Julia, Puerto Rican actor (1940-1994); Ornette Coleman, US jazz musician (1930-2015); Charles Gibson, US journalist (1943- ); Juliette Binoche, French actress (1964- ); Emmanuel Lewis, US actor (1971- )

— AP