Today is the 248th day of 2023. There are 117 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHTS

2012: Austerity measures require Greece to increase its maximum working days to six per week.

OTHER EVENTS

1793: The Reign of Terror begins as harsh measures are undertaken against those suspected of being enemies of the French Revolution (nobles, priests, and hoarders); in Paris a wave of executions follow.

1889: German Christine Hardt patents the first modern brassiere.

1905: The Treaty of Portsmouth, mediated by US President Theodore Roosevelt in New Hampshire, ends the Russo-Japanese War.

1939: Four days after war broke out in Europe, President Franklin D Roosevelt issues a proclamation declaring US neutrality in the conflict.

1958: The novel Doctor Zhivago by Russian author Boris Pasternak is published in the United States for the first time. The first colour video recording on magnetic tape is presented at Charlotte, North Carolina.

1960: At the Rome Olympics, American boxer Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali) defeats Zbigniew Pietrzykowski of Poland to win the light-heavyweight gold medal; Wilma Rudolph of the United States wins the second of her three gold medals in the 200-metre sprint.

1961: President John F Kennedy signs legislation making aircraft hijackings a federal crime.

1972: The Palestinian group Black September attacks the Israeli Olympic delegation at the Munich Games; 11 Israelis, five guerrillas and a police officer are killed in the resulting siege.

1976: The first episode of The Muppet Show, which was co-created by Jim Henson, airs, and the TV series becomes hugely popular, known for a cast of puppet characters that included Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy.

1989: Hundreds of thousands of blacks begin a two-day strike in South Africa on the eve of segregated elections.

1991: Soviet lawmakers approve the creation of an interim Government to usher in the new confederation of sovereign states.

1995: American neo-Nazi Gary Lauck is extradited to Germany from Denmark to stand trial on charges of inciting racial hatred and other counts.

1996: Ramzi Yousef, a Muslim extremist who allegedly masterminded the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing, is convicted with two other men of planning to blow up a dozen US commercial airliners.

1997: Responding to a triple suicide bombing in Jerusalem, Israel refuses to hand over West Bank land to the Palestinians. Breaking the royal reticence over the death of Princess Diana, Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II delivers a televised address in which she calls her former daughter-in-law “a remarkable person”. Mother Teresa dies in Calcutta, India, at age 87.

1998: North Korea’s Parliament elects Kim Jong Il to the presidency, completing the communist world’s first hereditary succession.

2000: Fierce fighting devastates areas of Jaffna Peninsula, Sri Lanka, for a second day, leaving at least 344 people dead as the Government orders a major military offensive ahead of key elections. Tuvalu, a group of nine coral islands in the west-central Pacific with a population of about 10,000, becomes the 189th member of the United Nations.

2001: Peru’s attorney general files homicide charges against ex-President Alberto Fujimori, linking him to two massacres by paramilitary death squads in the early 1990s.

2005: President George W Bush nominates John Roberts to succeed the late William Rehnquist as chief justice of the United States. An Indonesian jetliner crashes and results in 149 deaths, including 49 on the ground; 17 passengers survive.

2006: Felipe Calderon becomes president-elect of Mexico when the nation’s top electoral court votes unanimously to reject allegations of fraud and certify his narrow victory.

2007: Hundreds of Buddhist monks hold an anti-Government protest march in a central Myanmar town, halting their demonstration only after soldiers fire warning shots and arrest several of them.

2008: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice becomes the highest-ranking American official in half a century to visit Libya, where she meets Moammar Gadhafi.

2011: A battered al-Qaeda suffers another significant blow when Pakistani agents working with the CIA arrest a senior leader believed to have been tasked by Osama bin Laden with targeting American economic interests around the globe.

2013: President Barack Obama, in St Petersburg for a G-20 summit, presses fellow world leaders to support a US strike on Syria; however, he encounters opposition from Russia, China and even the European Union who say it is too soon for military action; his Administration considers a plan to help increase the capabilities of Syrian rebels.

2015: US health officials confirm a salmonella outbreak linked to cucumbers from Mexico is responsible for one death and making hundreds sick.

2017: US President Donald Trump announces he is phasing out the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, programme protecting young immigrants who were brought to the country illegally, but says he is giving Congress six months to come up with an alternative. Hurricane Irma becomes the most powerful hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic Basin region with winds of 185mph. Togo’s Government shuts down the Internet for a week to quell Government opposition.

2018: Anonymous senior White house official opinion piece: I am part of the resistance inside the Trump administration, is published by The New York Times.

2019: Erramatti Mangamma becomes the world’s oldest living mother, giving birth to twins at the age of 74, in Hyderabad, India.

2020: More than 50 arrested as Portland, Oregon, marks 100 days of protests against racism and police brutality.

2021: Patrick Cantlay claims the richest prize in golf (US$15 million) with a one-stroke win over Jon Rahm; runner-up Rahm pockets US$5 million.

2022: UK’s ruling Conservative party appoints Liz Truss as their next leader and prime minister, replacing scandal-ridden Boris Johnson.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Louis XIV, the “Sun King” of France (1638-1715); Caspar David Friedrich, German painter (1774-1840); Giacomo Meyerbeer, German composer (1791-1864); Paul Bourget, French author (1852-1935); Arthur Koestler, Hungarian-born British writer (1905-1983); John Cage, US composer (1912-1992); Raquel Welch, US actress (1940- ); Bob Newhart, actor-comedian (1929- ); Werner Herzog, German director (1942- ); Yuna Kim, Olympic gold medal figure skater (1990- ); Skandar Keynes, actor (1991- )

– AP