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Today is the 270th day of 2021. There are 95 days left in the yearTODAY'S HIGHLIGHT2008: Chinese astronaut Zhai Zhigang completes China's first spacewalk.OTHER EVENTS1540: Pope Paul approves Ignatius of Loyola's proposal to create the Society of Jesus, or Jesuit Order.1779: American John Adams is named to negotiate the Revolutionary War's peace terms with Britain.1825: George Stephenson drives the steam locomotive he designed on the opening run of the first passenger railway, from Stockton to Darlington, England.1923: Martial law is declared in Germany.1928: The United States agrees to recognise the Nationalist Chinese Government.1940: Germany, Italy, and Japan sign 10-year military and economic pacts, setting up Berlin-Rome-Tokyo Axis.1951: The West German Bundestag pledges restitution to Jews for crimes perpetrated by the Nazis. No exact amount is decided, but West Germany will repay about US$600 million in goods.1968: France bars Britain's entry into European Common Market.1970: Jordan's King Hussein and Al Fatah guerrilla leader Yasser Arafat meet in Cairo with 10 Arab chiefs of State and sign agreement ending civil war in Jordan.1990: Britain and Iran restore diplomatic relations. Ties had been broken off in March 1989 after the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a death sentence against writer Salman Rushdie.1993: The UN Security Council bans sales of arms and fuel to the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) because the rebel movement failed to stop fighting the Government and renegotiate a peace settlement to end the country's civil war.1994: American soldiers take over the Haitian Parliament as they continue to spread out over the country.1996: Islamist Taliban rebels seize control of Kabul and quickly hang former president Najibullah.1998: Gerhard Schroeder and his Social Democrats win German elections after 16 years of conservative rule under Chancellor Helmut Kohl.1999: Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak wins his fourth six-year term, taking nearly 94 per cent of the vote in a referendum on his presidency.2000: A Greek ferry strikes rocks and sinks, killing 75 people. The ship's captain and crew are detained by police, when some survivors say they were watching a soccer match on television as the ship went aground.2001: Macedonia's top ethnic Albanian rebel leader, Ali Ahmeti, announces that his forces have disbanded after surrendering thousands of weapons to North Atlantic Treaty Organization.2004: The top prosecutor for Sierra Leone's war crimes court accuses former Liberian President Charles Taylor of recruiting fighters in the country he once led and working to destabilise other West African nations.2005: Afghanistan's Interior Minister Ahmad Ali Jalali resigns after expressing frustration over the involvement of senior officials in the country's booming drug trade.2006: California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signs into law a sweeping global warming initiative that imposes the first cap on greenhouse gas emissions in the US.2007: Soldiers fire into fleeing crowds on the bloodiest day in the month-long protest against Myanmar's junta, and at least nine people are killed. Tens of thousands demonstrate for the 10th straight day in Yangon and security forces also raid several monasteries overnight.2010: Pakistan disputes North Atlantic Treaty Organization's claim that its forces have the right of hot pursuit across the Afghan border after coalition helicopters launch airstrikes that kill more than 50 militants who had escaped into Pakistan following an attack on an Afghan security post.2011: A convicted killer who escaped from a US prison in 1970 and hijacked an American airliner two years later while dressed as a priest is captured in Portugal after more than 40 years as a fugitive.TODAY'S BIRTHDAYSKing Louis XIII of France (1601-1643); Samuel Adams, US revolutionary leader (1722-1803); Louis Botha, first prime minister of South Africa (1862-1919); Arthur Penn, US film director (1922-2002); Dick Schaap, US sportscaster (1934-2001); Meat Loaf, US rock singer (1947- ); Gwyneth Paltrow, actress (1972- ); Robbie Shakespeake, Jamaican guitarist of Sly and Robbie duo (1953- )- AP/Jamaica Observer