Today is the 256th day of 2017. There are 109 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

2005: US President George W Bush says that “I take responsibility” for failures in dealing with Hurricane Katrina, and says the disaster raised broader questions about the Government’s ability to respond to natural disasters as well as terror attacks.

OTHER EVENTS

1536: Holy Roman Emperor Charles V abandons siege of Marseilles after disastrous campaign and sails from Genoa to Barcelona.

1586: Anthony Babington and fellow conspirators go on trial for attempting to seize throne of England for Mary Queen of Scots by plotting to murder Queen Elizabeth I.

1788: The first US national election is authorised.

1943: Chiang Kai-shek becomes president of China.

1948: Republican Margaret Chase Smith of Maine is elected to the US Senate, becoming the first woman to serve in both houses of Congress.

1971: A four-day inmates’ rebellion at the Attica Correctional Facility in upstate New York ends as police and guards storm the prison; the ordeal and final assault kills 43 people.

1982: At least 700 persons are killed and 17 million left homeless by floods across the north and east of India during the monsoon season since June.

1986: Iraqi warplanes bomb five airfields in Iran as demonstrators seek revenge for Iran’s missile attack on Baghdad.

1993: Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestine Liberation Organisation leader Yasser Arafat shake hands on the lawn of the White House at the signing of a peace accord providing for mutual recognition and Palestinian control over Gaza and the West Bank.

1994: At UN International Conference on Population and Development, 180 nations adopt a 20-year blueprint to slow world population growth.

1998: The Yugoslav republic of Montenegro deports thousands of Kosovo refugees to Albania.

2001: An international arrest warrant is issued for Peru’s exiled former President Alberto Fujimori for his alleged role in massacres by the Grupo Colina paramilitary death squad in the early 1990s.

2004: North Korea says a huge cloud caused by an explosion was the planned demolition of a mountain for a hydroelectric project and invites a British diplomat to visit the site.

2007: Three powerful earthquakes jolt Indonesia in less than 24 hours, sending a 10-foot tsunami crashing to shore, damaging hundreds of houses and terrifying residents. At least 10 people are killed.

2009: President Hugo Chavez says Russia has opened a $2.2 billion line of credit for Venezuela to purchase weapons including armored vehicles and surface-to-air missiles.

2011: German Chancellor Angela Merkel seeks to calm market fears that Greece is heading for a chaotic default as Europe struggles to contain a crippling financial crisis.