Today is the 104th day of 2013. There are 261 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1849: Hungarians proclaim independence from Hapsburg empire with Lajos Kossuth as Governor-President. The rebellion is put down by Russian troops in August.

OTHER EVENTS

1775: The first American society for the abolition of slavery is organised by Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush.

1828: The first edition of Noah Webster’s American Dictionary of the English Language is published.

1890: Delegates to Washington Conference of American States create what is to become the Pan-American Union; that North, South and Central America are all American nations.

1902: James Cash Penney opens his first store, The Golden Rule, in Kemmerer, Wyoming.

1912: The British liner Titanic collides with an iceberg in the North Atlantic and begins sinking.

1931: King Alfonso XIII of Spain goes into exile, and the Second Spanish Republic iss proclaimed.

1949: The “Wilhelmstrasse Trial” in Nuremberg ends with 19 former Nazi Foreign Office officials sentenced by an American tribunal to prison terms ranging from four to 25 years.

1956: Ampex Corp demonstrates its videotape recorder at the National Association of Radio and Television Broadcasters Convention in Chicago.

1981: The first test flight of America’s first operational space shuttle, the Columbia, ends successfully with a landing at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

1986: French feminist author Simone de Beauvoir dies in Paris at age 78.

2000: After years of delay, Russian lawmakers approve the START II treaty to scrap thousands of US and Russian nuclear warheads, clearing the way for further arms reductions.

2003: Indonesian prosecutors indict Abu Bakar Bashir, a 64-year-old radical Islamic cleric, on charges of treason for allegedly plotting to assassinate President Megawati Sukarnoputri and overthrow the government.

2005: Afghan farmers challenge President Hamid Karzai’s plans to destroy the world’s largest narcotics industry, vowing to protect their opium crops from an eradication campaign led by UStrained drug police.

2006: Chad’s president Idriss Deby breaks off relations with neighbouring Sudan, threatens to expel 200,000 Darfur refugees and parades more than 250 captured rebels through the streets of the capital after a violent attempt to overthrow him.

2008: Media billionaire Silvio Berlusconi wins a decisive victory in Italy’s parliamentary election, setting the colourful conservative and staunch US ally on course to his third stint as premier.

2010: The head of the World Bank says it is time to stop using the term “Third World” to refer to developing countries and recognise they are an essential part of a new, fast evolving international economy.

2012: Eleven Secret Service agents are placed on leave in a Colombia prostitution scandal that overshadows President Barack Obama’s diplomatic mission to Latin America.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Christian Huygens, Dutch mathematician-scientist (1629-1695); John Gielgud, English actor (1904-2000); Rod Steiger, US actor (1925-2002); Loretta Lynn, US country singer (1935-); Julie Christie, British actress (1940-); Brad Garrett, US actor (1960-); Sarah Michelle Gellar, US actress (1977-).

— AP