Today is the 271st day of 2023. There are 94 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

2017: The Donald Trump Administration says its relief efforts in Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria were succeeding, though people on the island say help was scarce and disorganised.

OTHER EVENTS

1066: William, duke of Normandy, invades England and claims the English throne.

1542: Portuguese navigator Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo arrives at present-day San Diego.

1687: Turks surrender Athens to Venetians, but retake it a year later.

1716: Treaty of Hanover between England and France leads to Triple Alliance with Holland.

1781: American forces, backed by a French fleet, begin the siege of Yorktown Heights, Virginia, during the Revolutionary War.

1787: Congress votes to send the just-completed US Constitution to state legislatures for their approval.

1850: Flogging is abolished as a form of punishment in the US Navy.

1915: British defeat Turks at Kut-el-Amara in Mesopotamia.

1920: A grand jury indicts eight members of the Chicago White Sox baseball team, accused of throwing the 1919 World Series and dubbed the Black Sox.

1924: Two US Army planes land in Seattle, Washington, completing the first round-the-world flight in 175 days.

1928: Scottish medical researcher Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin, the first effective antibiotic.

1941: Nazi German terror campaign begins in Czechoslovakia.

1987: India and Sri Lanka’s Tamil guerrilla group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, agree to an accord that gives the Tigers a council majority to administer the semi-autonomous northern and eastern provinces in Sri Lanka.

1990: Three Philippine military officers and 13 soldiers are convicted and sentenced to life in prison for the 1983 murder of Opposition Leader Benigno S Aquino Jr.

1995: Israel and Palestinians sign a historic accord at the White House, in Washington, to extend Palestinian rule on the strife-ridden West Bank.

2003: Pope John Paul II appoints 31 Roman Catholic prelates to the College of Cardinals, entitling most of those selected to vote for the next pope.

2008: Chinese astronauts aboard the Shenzhou 7 returned to Earth after completing their country’s first spacewalk mission. Austrian 16-year-olds voted for the first time in parliamentary elections under a law adopted in 2007.

2010: The youngest son of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il is elected to his first prominent post in the ruling Workers’ Party, putting him well on the path to succeed his father as leader.

2014: Pro-democracy demonstrators defy onslaughts of tear gas and appeals from Hong Kong’s top leader to go home as the protests over Beijing’s decision to limit political reforms expand across the city.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Prosper Merimee, French author (1803-1870); Ben E King, US singer (1938-2015); John Sayles, US film director/writer (1950- ); Naomi Watts, actress (1968- ); Olive Lewin, Jamaican author, musicologist and social anthropologist (1927-2013)

– AP/Jamaica Observer