Today is the 51st day of 2014. There are 314 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1998: Fifteen-year-old American Tara Lipinski becomes the youngest gold medallist in winter Olympics history when she wins the ladies’ figure skating title at Nagano, Japan.

OTHER EVENTS

1792: US President George Washington signs an act creating the US Post Office.

1809: The US Supreme Court rules the power of the federal government is greater than that of any individual state.

1631: German Protestant princes form alliance with Sweden’s King Gustavus II, setting the stage for the Swedish entry into the Thirty Years’ War.

1928: Britain recognises independence of Trans-Jordan.

1933: US House of Representatives completes congressional action on an amendment to repeal Prohibition, the ban on the manufacture, sale, or transportation of alcoholic beverages.

1962: Astronaut John Glenn becomes the first American to orbit Earth on the Friendship 7 Mercury capsule.

1967: Indonesia’s President Sukarno surrenders all executive power to General Suharto, keeping only the title of President.

1986: Russia launches the Mir space station.

1990: England announces it will unilaterally lift ban on new investments in South Africa.

1991: Slovenia’s legislators vote overwhelmingly to initiate secession from Yugoslavia.

1996: General Hussein Kamel, son-in-law of President Saddam Hussein, returns to Iraq after having defected to Jordan. He is killed with his relatives a few days later.

1997: The US Government refuses to recognise World Trade Organisation’s authority in its dispute with the European Union over trade with Cuba.

1998: The last power cable supplying downtown Auckland, New Zealand, fails, leaving 100 blocks dark for weeks.

1999: Atal Bihari Vajpayee becomes the first Indian prime minister to go to Pakistan in 10 years when he rides the first commercial bus service between the two countries in 51 years.

2000: A crowd of angry Serbs pelt American and German peacekeepers with rocks and bricks during a massive house-to-house search for illegal weapons in an ethnically divided Kosovo town.

2002: A fire breaks out on a crowded train travelling from Cairo to Luxor in southern Egypt killing 373 people and injuring 60 in the worst train disaster in Egyptian history.

2003: A fire sparked by heavy-metal band Great White’s pyrotechnic display kills 100 people and injures more than 180 others at a nightclub in West Warwick, Rhode Island.

2004: A police-commission audit says that Atlanta underreported crimes for years to help land the 1996 Olympics and pump up tourism.

2005: The Irish government identifies three top Sinn Fein figures — including leader Gerry Adams — as members of the Irish Republican Army command.

2007: Three ultra-endurance athletes complete the first-ever run across the world’s largest desert. American runner Charlie Engle, 44, Canadian Ray Zahab, 38, and Kevin Lin, 30, of Taiwan, crossed the Sahara Desert’s gruelling 4,000 miles (6,400 kilometres) in less than

four months.

2008: Space shuttle Atlantis and its crew return to Earth, wrapping up a 5-million-mile (8 million-kilometre) journey highlighted by the successful delivery of a new European lab to the international space station.

2009: Israeli President

Shimon Peres chooses Benjamin Netanyahu to form new government.

2011: Libyan protesters defy a fierce crackdown by Muammar Gadhafi’s regime, returning to a square outside a court building in the flashpoint city of Benghazi to demand the overthrow of the longtime ruler.TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Sir William Cornwallis, English admiral (1744-1819); Honore Daumier, French artist (1808-1879); Lucien Pissarro, French artist (1863-1944); Robert Altman, US director (1925-2006); Sidney Poitier, US actor (1927-); Peter Strauss, US actor (1947-); Cindy Crawford, US model (1966-); Lili Taylor, US actress (1967-)

—AP