Today is the 218th day of 2013. There are 147 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1962: Jamaica becomes an independent dominion within the British Commonwealth.

OTHER EVENTS

1497: Genovese navigator Giovanni Caboto returns from a voyage on which he claimed Nova Scotia for his sponsor, England.

1787: The Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia begins to debate the articles in a draft of the United States Constitution.

1806: Holy Roman Empire ends as Francis II formally resigns the Imperial Dignity and becomes Francis I, Emperor of Austria.

1824: Simon Bolivar defeats Spanish forces at Junin in Peru.

1825: Bolivia declares its independence from Peru.

1840: Louis Napoleon attempts uprising at Bologne in France, but fails and is later sentenced to life imprisonment.

1890: Convicted murderer William Kemmler is the first person executed by electric chair. He is put to death at Auburn State Prison in New York.

1926: Warner Brothers Studios premieres the first movie with sound in New York; Gertrude Ederle of New York becomes the first American woman to swim the English Channel.

1942: On behalf of Pope Pius XII, the Papal Nuncio protests the “inhuman arrests and deportations” of Jews from occupied France to Silesia and occupied Russian territory by German authorities.

1945: The first atomic bomb ever used in a war is dropped by US plane, Enola Gay, on Hiroshima, Japan. The world learns of the horrifying effects of radiation for years to come.

1948: The first round-the-world flight by B-29s is completed when two giant bombers land at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base near Tucson, Arizona. The planes made the trip to the US base in a leisurely 15 days with 8 stops.

1965: US President Lyndon Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act.

1986: William J Schroeder dies after living 620 days with the “Jarvik 7” artificial heart.

1990: Pakistan’s Benazir Bhutto is ousted by the military after 20 months as prime minister.

1998: The World Bank approves a US$1.5-billion loan to Russia as part of a US$22.6-billion emergency rescue package designed to help the financially troubled nation restructure its economy.

2003: Action film star Arnold Schwarzenegger announces that he would run as a Republican candidate to replace California Governor Gray Davis in a recall election.

2005: Iran rejects a European proposal for a settlement of its nuclear stand-off, saying the offer fails to recognise its right to enrich uranium, as ultra-conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is sworn in as president.

2009: Sonia Sotomayor wins confirmation as the first Hispanic justice on the US Supreme Court, a landmark Senate vote that caps a summer-long debate heavy with ethnic politics and hints of high court fights to come.

2010: A suspected al-Qaeda operative who lived for more than 15 years in the US has become chief of the terror network’s global operations, the FBI says, marking the first time a leader so intimately familiar with American society has been placed in charge of planning attacks.

2011: Insurgents shoot down a U.S. military helicopter during fighting in eastern Afghanistan, killing 30 Americans, most of them belonging to the same elite Navy unit that killed Osama bin Laden, as well as seven Afghan commandos. It was the deadliest single loss for American forces in the decade-old war.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY

Alfred Lord Tennyson, English poet (1809-1892); Alexander Fleming, British discoverer of penicillin (1881-1945); Lucille Ball, US actress (1911-1989); Robert Mitchum, US actor (1917-1997); Andy Warhol, US artist (1928-1987); Peggy and Patsy Lynn, US country singers(1964-); M Night Shyamalan, US film director (1970-); Charlie Haden, jazz bassist (1937-); Abbey Lincoln, jazz singer/actress (1930-2010).