Today is the 334th day of 2022. There are 31 days left in the year.

TODAY'S HIGHLIGHT

"King of Pop" Michael Jackson on this day, 1982, releases Thriller — the best-selling album of all time.

OTHER EVENTS

1487: First German Beer Purity Law (Reinheitsgebot) is promulgated in Munich by Albert IV, Duke of Bavaria stating beer should be brewed from only three ingredients — water, malt and hops.

1718: Sweden's "warrior king" Charles XII is killed in Norway from a bullet to the head, ending Sweden's "Age of Greatness"; a holiday for Swedish nationalists is later declared.

1782: Americans and British sign preliminary peace articles in Paris, ending the American Revolutionary War.

1786: The Grand Duke of Tuscany Leopold II promulgates a penal reform and makes his the first State to abolish the death penalty.

1872: First international soccer game sees Scotland draw with England (0-0) in Glasgow.

1936: Fire virtually destroys Crystal Palace.

1939: Soviet troops totalling about one million men attack Finland after its refusal to grant the Soviet Union a naval base and other concessions in the fall of 1939, initiating Russo-Finnish War.

1940: I Love Lucy actress Lucille Ball weds Cuban actor and singer Desi Arnaz in Connecticut; they divorce in 1960.

1953: Before the UN General Assembly in New York a US delegate charges Russians headed Korean prison camps where 38,000 Allied troops and Korean civilians were victims of Communist atrocities during the war.

1954: Ann Hodges is bruised by a meteor at Sylacauga, Alabama in the first modern instance of a meteorite striking a human.

1964: Soviet Union launches a spacecraft toward Mars in an apparent race with US Mariner 4.

1966: Former British colony of Barbados gains independence.

1971: US President Richard Nixon authorises the Export-Import Bank of the United Sates to extend credit to Romania, ending a three-year ban on US Government-backed credit to Communist-bloc nations.

1975: Four Timorese parties proclaim independence of the territory and its integration with Indonesia.

1979: Pink Floyd's The Wall is released; it sells 6 million copies in 2 weeks.

1981: United States and the Soviet Union open negotiations in Geneva aimed at reducing nuclear weapons in Europe.

1987: James Baldwin, black American novelist and playwright of Go Tell It on the Mountain and Notes of a Native Son, et al, dies of cancer.

1988: Ethnic clashes between Armenians and Azerbaijanis result in the deaths of 11 people in five Armenian cities.

1993: In Belfast, Northern Ireland, gunmen murder a Catholic factory worker while politicians talk of peace. US President Bill Clinton signs into law the Brady Bill which requires a five-day waiting period for handgun purchases and background checks of prospective buyers.

1994: The Beatles' first album in 25 years, Live at the BBC, is released in Britain.

1996: Rallying against Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, who annulled Opposition victories in local elections, 150,000 people march through the Yugoslav capital of Belgrade.

1998: British hospital where General Augusto Pinochet is staying says he doesn't need medical care — a blow to the Chilean ex-dictator's plan to plead he is too ill to stand trial for extradition to Spain.

1999: Opening of a 135-nation trade gathering in Seattle is disrupted by at least 40,000 demonstrators. Exxon and Mobil formally merge, becoming ExxonMobil.

2000: South and North Korean relatives, separated for half a century, are reunited in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang.

TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS

Jonathan Swift, English satirist (1667-1745); Sir Winston Churchill, British statesman (1874-1965); Mark Twain, US author (1835-1910); G C Foster (Gerald Claude Eugene Foster), Jamaican dynamic sportsman (1885-1966); Shirley Chisholm, politician and first African American woman to be elected to the US Congress (1924-2005); Ridley Scott, British film director (1937- ); Ben Stiller, American actor, writer, and director (1965- )