This is the 264th day of 2022. There are 101 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1872: James H Conyers becomes the first African American admitted to the US Naval Academy (USNA) at Annapolis.

OTHER EVENTS:

19 bce: Roman poet Virgil, best known for his national epic Aeneid, dies.

46 BC: Julius Caesar celebrates the first of four triumphal processions in Rome — over Gaul, Egypt, Pontus and Africa — with leader of the Gauls, Vercingetorix led in chains.

1192: English King Richard I “The Lionheart” is captured by Leopold V, Duke of Austria.

1217: Estonian tribal leader Lembitu of Lehola is killed in a battle with the Teutonic Knights.

1348: Jews in Zurich, Switzerland, are accused of poisoning wells.

1435: In the French kingdom the Treaty of Arras is signed, ending the long quarrel between Duke Philip of Burgundy and King Charles VII.

1513: James V is crowned king of Scotland in the Chapel Royal at Stirling Castle, aged 17 months.

1538: The Shrine of Saint Swithun in Winchester is smashed in the middle of the night as part of the English Reformation.

1558: Charles V, holy Roman emperor, dies on this day, aged 58, in Yuste, Spain.

1591: French bishops recognise Henry IV as King of France.

1677: Jan and Nicolaas van der Heyden patent the fire hose.

1745: During the Battle of Preston Pans, Bonnie Prince Charles beats the British Government army.

1776: Five days after the British take New York a quarter of the city burns down. Nathan Hale, who spied on the British for American rebels, is arrested.

1780: US General Benedict Arnold gives British Major John André plans to West Point.

1784: The Pennsylvania Packet and Daily Advertiser becomes the first successful daily newspaper in the United States.

1792: The National Convention passes a proclamation announcing the formal abolition of the French monarchy.

1794: The French National Convention orders the remains of Comte de Mirabeau be removed from the Panthéon after his double-dealings with Louis XVI are revealed.

1823: According to the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Moroni was an angel or resurrected being who appeared to Joseph Smith on this day in 1823 and instructed him to restore God’s church on earth.

1827: According to Joseph Smith Jr, on this day the angel Moroni gives him a record of gold plates, one-third of which Joseph translated into The Book of Mormon.

1840: While experimenting with gallic acid, a chemical he was informed would increase the sensitivity of his prepared paper, William Henry Fox Talbot discovers that the acid can be used to develop a latent image on paper, leading to a revolution in photography.

1883: The first direct US-Brazil telegraph connection is made.

1885: The Dutch demonstrate for a general voting right.

1893: Frank Duryea drives the first American-made, gas-propelled vehicle.

1895: America’s first automotive producer, the Duryea Motor Wagon Company, is founded by Charles and J Frank Duryea.

1898: Empress Dowager Cixi seizes power and ends the Hundred Days’ Reform in China, imprisoning the Guangxu Emperor.

1903: The first cowboy film, Kit Carson premieres in the United States.

1904: The general strike called by the Socialist Party, which spread throughout Italy, ends.

1913: The first aerobatic manoeuvre, a sustained inverted flight, is performed in France.

1915: Cecil Chubb buys th English prehistoric monument Stonehenge for £6,600.

1921: Pope Benedictus XV donates 1 million lire to feed Russians. A storage silo at a BASF fertiliser-producing plant explodes in Oppau, Germany; 500-600 are killed.

1922: US President Warren G Harding signs a joint resolution of approval to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

1930: Johann Ostermeyer patents the flashbulb.

1931: The Bank of England drops the gold standard and the pound sterling promptly loses 28 per cent of its value, undermining the solvency of countries in eastern Europe and South America.

1934: A typhoon strikes Honshu Island Japan, killing 4,000.

1937: English writer J R R Tolkien’s The Hobbit, a coming-of-age fantasy that became a classic, is published.

1938: British politician Winston Churchill condemns Germany’s Adolf Hitler’s annexation of Czechoslovakia.

1939: Nazi leader Reinhard Heydrich meets in Berlin to discuss a final solution regarding the Jews.

1942: Hostages totalling 116 are executed by Nazis in Paris.

1946: Indians play their final game in League Park, ending a 55-year stay.

1949: Chinese Communist leaders proclaim the People’s Republic of China.

1957: American TV series Perry Mason, which was based on a mystery series by Erle Stanley Gardner, debuts and becomes hugely popular, especially noted for Raymond Burr’s portrayal of the title character.

1972: Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos imposes martial law in the Philippines, beginning a period of harsh authoritarian rule.

1981: Belize gains its independence from the United Kingdom.

1982: NFL players begin a 57-day strike.

1996: Supermodel Christie Brinkley weds Peter Cook, her fourth marriage.

2001: In stock market trading in the United States, the Dow Jones industrial average posts its largest weekly loss (14.3 per cent) since the Great Depression.

2004: The American band Green Day releases its iconic American Idiot, which later won a Grammy Award for Best Rock Album and was adapted into a rock opera.

2013: Al-Shabaab militants launch a terrorist attack on the Westgate shopping centre in Nairobi which ended three days later and left more than 65 people dead, including Ghanian poet and novelist Kofi Awoonor.

2016: Three genetic studies published in the journal Nature conclude all non-Africans descended from one migration out of Africa 50-80,000 years previously. A genomic study, also published in Nature, finds the Australian Aboriginals to be the oldest-known civilisation on earth.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Henry L Stimson, American statesman (1867-1950); Kwame Nkrumah, president of Ghana (1909-1972); Larry Hagman, American actor (1931-2012); Stephen King, American novelist (1947- ); Bill Murray, American comedian and actor (1950- ); Shinzo Abe, prime minister of Japan (1954-2022); Faith Hill, American singer (1967- )

– AP