Today is the 93rd day of 2013. There are 272 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHTS

1930: Ras Tafari becomes Emperor Haile Selassie of Abyssinia (Ethiopia).

OTHER EVENTS

1946: Lt General Masaharu Homma, the Japanese commander responsible for the Bataan Death March, is executed in the Philippines.

1948: The US creates the Marshall Plan, allocating US$5.33 billion in aid to 16 European nations to help in rebuilding after World War II.

1978: U¬S President Jimmy Carter decides not to produce the neutron bomb. His decision cancels development of a weapon designed to destroy living things while leaving buildings intact.

1982: British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher orders a naval task force to the Falkland Islands. The islands had been British territories since 1833 and Argentina’s seizure of them was considered an act of aggression.

1990: The Bulgarian parliament adopts legislation for free elections and appoints Petar Mladenov as president.

1991: UN Security Council votes 12-1 to accept a cease-fire resolution requiring Iraq to destroy its weapons of mass destruction and authorising peacekeeping troops to be deployed in the region.

1992: Communist Ramiz Alia resigns as president of Albania, two weeks after a noncommunist parliament is elected.

1995: At least 150 Hutus, mostly women and children, are massacred in a single village in northeastern Burundi.

2000: ¬A US judge deals a momentous legal setback to software giant Microsoft Corp, ruling that the company violated federal antitrust laws by building a monopoly and trying to take over the Web browser market.

2001: The death toll in a meningitis outbreak in Burkina Faso tops 1,000. The government and the World Health Organisation scramble to secure vaccine to control the epidemic from spreading to neighboring countries.

2003: The World Health Organisation reports 2,270 illnesses, including 79 deaths, from a spreading epidemic of a new respiratory ailment known as SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome.

2005: Iraqi lawmakers choose a Sunni Arab as their parliament speaker, clearing a major hurdle that held up the formation of a new government two months after the country’s first free elections in 50 years.

2006: Thailand’s prime minister claims victory but acknowledges a strong protest vote in an election held after weeks of demonstrations demanding his resignation for alleged corruption and abuse of power.

2007: A French V150 train with a 25,000-horsepower engine and special wheels breaks the world speed record for conventional rail trains, reaching 357.2 mph (574.8 kph) in the French countryside.

2009: John Demjanjuk, accused of being a Nazi death camp guard, marks his 89th birthday by winning a reprieve of his ordered deportation from the US to Germany to face possible trial.

2012: The US issues travel restrictions for leaders of Mali’s recent coup and says they should restore civilian rule in the West African nation immediately.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Washington Irving, US writer (1783-1859); James Hertzog, South African statesman-soldier (1865-1942); Camille Chamoun, Lebanese statesman (1900-1988); Marlon Brando, US actor (1924-2004); Doris Day, US actress-singer (1924-); Helmut Kohl, German chancellor (1930-); Eddie Murphy, US actor (1961-); Alec Baldwin, US actor (1958-); David Hyde Pierce, US actor (1959-).

— AP