Today is the 259th day of 2021. There are 106 days left in the year.

TODAY'S HIGHLIGHT

1994: A federal court jury in Anchorage, Alaska, orders Exxon Corp to pay US$5 billion in punitive damages to Alaskan fishermen and natives for the March 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill.

OTHER EVENTS

1668: John II Casimir, facing a rebellion after a string of disastrous wars, abdicates as king of Poland and becomes an abbot in France.

1673: Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I declares war against France.

1810: Mexicans begin their revolt against Spanish rule.

1913: Japan sends flotilla to Yangtze River following China's failure to honour reparation agreement.

1955: Argentine President Juan Peron is ousted by a military coup during his second term in office and begins an 18-year exile.

1957: Coup in Thailand places Pote Sarasin, new secretary-general of Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, as premier.

1963: Malaya, North Borneo, Sarawak, and Singapore form Federation of Malaysia.

1967: UN Secretary General U Thant calls on United States to halt bombing of North Vietnam.

1970: Week-long “Black September” civil war starts in Jordan, with King Hussein declaring martial law and calling up troops to fight Palestinians.

1972: The monument for National Hero Norman Washington Manley, designed by H D Repole, is dedicated at National Heroes' Park in Kingston, Jamaica.

1974: US President Gerald Ford announces a conditional amnesty programme for Vietnam War deserters and draft evaders.

1975: Papua New Guinea, previously under Australian Administration, becomes an independent nation.

1978: More than 11,000 people are feared dead after an earthquake measuring 7.7 on the Richter scale hits the south-east region of Iran.

1979: Afghanistan's President Nur Mohammed Taraki is overthrown in coup headed by hard-line Communist Prime Minister Hafizullah Amin.

1987: Two dozen countries sign the Montreal Protocol, designed to reduce emission of gases that deplete the ozone layer by the year 2000.

1990: Iraq opens Kuwait's borders and thousands of Kuwaitis attempt to flee their country.

1992: Russian and Cuban officials announce they reached an agreement on the withdrawal from Cuba of a 1,500-troop brigade stationed there by the former Soviet Union.

1995: In Mexico, three military planes flying in formation crash during Mexican Independence Day festivities, killing six crew members.

1997: Typhoon Oliwa hits south-western Japan, killing six and forcing 80,000 people from their homes.

1998: Serb security forces shell an ethnic Albanian rebel stronghold in northern Kosovo, spreading fighting to a peaceful area of the province and sending thousands of people fleeing.

1999: Indonesia's military commander in East Timor pledges to pull his troops out of the devastated province starting next week, ending a long, bitter occupation and making way for a multinational peacekeeping force.

2001: Typhoon Nari lashes northern Taiwan with fierce winds and torrential rain, shutting down schools, closing railway lines, and triggering landslides and flash flooding that kill nine people.

2002: Peace talks at a naval base in Sattahip, Thailand, open between the Sri Lankan Government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam rebel army, in an attempt to end Sri Lanka's 19-year civil war.

2004: The Mexican Government promises to give free homes to 47 mothers of women killed in a string of sexually motivated slayings in Ciudad Juarez, angering some who say that the gifts gloss over the lack of results in the criminal investigations.

2006: The Vatican announces that Pope Benedict XVI “sincerely regrets” offending Muslims with his reference to an obscure medieval text that characterises some of the teachings of Islam's founder as “evil and inhuman”.

2007: The budget One-Two-Go Airlines domestic flight OG269, carrying 123 passengers and seven crew members, crashes as it tries to land in pouring rain on Thailand's resort island of Phuket. At least 90 people are killed, including 54 foreign tourists.

2008: General David Petraeus steps aside as General Ray Odierno takes over as the top American commander of the Iraq war.

2009: Afghan officials issue full preliminary results showing President Hamid Karzai got 54.6 per cent of the vote in the previous month's election.

2010: Pope Benedict XVI wades into the hostile atmosphere of highly secular Britain, admitting the Roman Catholic Church did not act decisively or quickly enough to remove priests who molested children, in his strongest comments yet on the worldwide sex abuse crisis shaking his church.

2013: UN inspectors say there is “clear and convincing evidence” that chemical weapons were used on a relatively large scale in an attack last month in Syria that killed hundreds of people.

TODAY'S BIRTHDAY

France's King Louis XIV (1638-1715); John Gay, English poet (1685-1732); J C Penney, US entrepreneur (1875-1971); Lauren Bacall, US actress (1924-2014); B B King, US blues musician (1925-2015); Peter Falk, US actor (1927-2011); Molly Shannon, US actress/comedian (1964- ); Amy Poehler, US actress/comedian (1971- ); Marc Anthony, Latin/pop singer (1969- )

— AP/Jamaica Observer