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Today Is The 335Th Day Of 2021. There Are 30 Days Left In The Year.TODAY'S HIGHLIGHT1955: Rosa Parks, a black seamstress, defies the law by refusing to give up her seat to a white man aboard a Montgomery, Alabama, city bus. She is arrested, sparking a year-long boycott of buses by blacks. OTHER EVENTS1640: Portugal revolts against Spanish control and becomes independent under John IV.1813: Allies agree to invade France after Napoleon Bonaparte's vague replies to peace terms.1821: The Dominican Republic declares independence from Spain.1824: The presidential election is turned over to the US House of Representatives when a deadlock develops among John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, William H Crawford, and Henry Clay. Adams is declared the winner.1887: Portugal secures the secession of Macao from China.1913: The first US drive-in automobile service station opens in Pittsburgh.1918: Croatia becomes part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes - later Yugoslavia.1925: Through the Locarno Treaties Belgium, Britain, Italy, Germany and France agree to a mutual peace in Europe.1934: Sergei Kirov, a trusted aide of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin but also a possible rival, is assassinated, prompting Stalin to purge the Communist Party.1935: Chiang Kai-Shek is elected president of Kuomintang, China's ruling party.1948: Arab conference at Jericho proclaims Abdullah of Transjordan King of Palestine.1954: United States signs mutual security pact with Nationalist China - now Taiwan.1959: Representatives of 12 countries, including the United States, sign a treaty in Washington setting aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve, free from military activity.1962: India rejects Chinese proposals for ceasefire and negotiations over disputed border territory.1965: An airlift of refugees from Cuba to the United States - The Maribel airlift - begins. Thousands of Cubans are allowed to leave their homeland.1971: The "Croatian Spring", a movement for more independence within Yugoslavia, is crushed.1978: US President Jimmy Carter places more than 56 million acres (22.4 million hectares) of Alaska's federal lands into the national parks system.1988: Benazir Bhutto is named Pakistan's prime minister, becoming the first woman to lead a modern-day Muslim nation.1990: British and French workers digging the Channel Tunnel between their countries finally meet after knocking out a passage in a service tunnel.1991: Ukrainians vote nine to one in favour of independence from Soviet Union in a referendum.1993: The United States and Britain increase pressure on Belgrade ahead of Bosnian peace talks by stopping a Russian proposal to supply natural gas to Yugoslavia during the winter.1995: Prosecutors in South Africa formally charge former Defence Minister General Magnus Malan and 19 others with the murders of 13 people in 1987.1997: Historians say banks in Switzerland received three times more gold than previously believed from the Nazis during World War II and that as much as one-sixth was stolen from concentration camp victims.1999: Scientists announce for the first time they have virtually mapped an entire human chromosome, one of the chains of molecules that bear the genetic recipe for human life.2000: Vicente Fox is elected president of Mexico, ending the seven-decade political dynasty of the Institutional Revolutionary Party. The election marks the first peaceful transfer of power to an opposition party in Mexico's history.2001: Japan's Crown Prince Naruhito's wife, Crown Princess Masako gives birth to a daughter, the couple's first child, and long-awaited royal heir.2007: Colombian government officials release a letter written by former presidential candidate, Ingrid Betancourt, and videos that are the first evidence in years that she and other rebel-held hostages including three US military contractors may still be alive.2008: One of the highest tides in its history brings Venice, Italy, to a virtual halt, flooding its historic St Mark's Square and rekindling a debate over a plan to build moveable flood barriers.2009: US President Barack Obama sends 30,000 more US troops to Afghanistan, accelerating a risky and expensive war build-up, even as he assures the nation that US forces will begin coming home in July 2011.2010: A new study suggests there are a mind-blowing 300 sextillion stars, or three times as many as scientists previously calculated. That is a three followed by 23 zeros. Or three trillion times 100 billion. TODAY'S BIRTHDAYSGerard Swope, US industrialist (1872-1957); Rex Stout, US mystery writer (1886-1975); Walter Alston US baseball manager (1911-1984); Mary Martin, US actress (1913-1990); former Vietnamese President Le Duc Anh (1920-2019); Bette Midler, US singer/actress (1945- ); Jeremy Northam, British actor (1961- ) - AP