Today is the 198th day of 2013. There are 167 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1994: Brazil makes World Cup soccer history with a fourth title.

OTHER EVENTS

1429: With Saint Joan of Arc standing by, Charles VII is crowned king of France in Reims, a day after the English-held town surrenders.

1453: The French defeat the English at the battle of Castillon, ending the Hundred Years War, with Calais the only English possession on the continent.

1586: Sir Francis Walsingham, diplomat and principal secretary to England’s Queen Elizabeth, exposes Babington Plot, a letter from Mary, Queen of Scots, to Anthony Babington planning Queen Elizabeth’s murder. As a result, Mary is executed a year later.

1603: Sir Walter Raleigh is arrested for suspected complicity in plot to dethrone England’s King James I.

1683: Turks lay siege to Vienna, marking the high tide of Ottoman power in Europe.

1762: Peter III, Czar of Russia, is assassinated a week after he abdicates the throne. His wife, Catherine II, who suspected Peter was going to divorce her, conspires to overthrow him and becomes Empress of Russia.

1890: Cecil Rhodes becomes premier of Cape Colony in Africa.

1918: Communists kill last Russian czar, Nicholas II, and his family following the October Revolution in the Siberian city of Yekaterinburg.

1936: Spanish Civil War starts as General Francisco Franco leads army forces in revolt against the government.

1945: US President Harry S Truman, British Prime Minister Clement Atlee, and Soviet leader Josef Stalin meet at Potsdam, Germany, to settle the post-World War II future of Europe, in a conference that lasts until August 2.

1955: Disneyland, the first Disney amusement park, opens its gates in Anaheim, California.

1968: The Baath Party, including Saddam Hussein, overthrows the Iraqi government.

1973: Afghanistan is proclaimed republic following palace coup that ends 40-year rule of King Mohammad Zaher Shah.

1990: German Chancellor Helmut Kohl says all major obstacles to a united Germany have been swept away and announces elections for a united German parliament.

1991: Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and US President George H W Bush announce a treaty to make historic cuts in nuclear weapons.

1997: The crew of the hobbled Mir pulls the wrong plug and shuts down most of the space station’s already disabled power system, leaving the shuttle in the dark and out of touch with Earth for hours.

1998: Czar Nicholas II of Russia and his family are given a state funeral and reburied in a St Petersburg cathedral, 80 years to the day after they were murdered by Bolsheviks. Scientists located the remains in 1976, but kept it secret until the collapse of the Soviet Union.

2005: Israel threatens to invade Gaza if Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas does not control militants who have stepped up rocket and mortar attacks ahead of Israel’s pullout from Gaza the following month.

2006: A tsunami crashes into beach resorts and fishing villages on Java island, killing more than 300 people and leaving more than 160 missing after bulletins failed to reach the Indonesian region because no warning system was in place.

2010: Thousands of gays and lesbians from around Europe march through Poland’s capital to demand equal rights and more tolerance in the heavily Roman Catholic nation.

2011: An intensifying voicemail hacking and police bribery scandal cuts closer than ever to Rupert Murdoch and Scotland Yard with the arrest of the media magnate’s former British newspaper chief and the resignation of London’s police commissioner.

2012: Israel plunges toward a political crisis after the largest party in the coalition quits, leaving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in charge of a hard-line government opposed to most Mideast peace moves.TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS:

David Lloyd George, English statesman (1863-1945); James Cagney, US actor (1899-1986); Phyllis Diller, US comedian (1917-2012); Diahann Carroll, US actress/singer (1935-); Donald Sutherland, actor (1935-); Lucie Arnaz, US actress (1951-); David Hasselhoff, US actor (1952-); Mark Burnett, TV producer (1960-).