Today is Wednesday, Aug. 4, the 216th day of 2010. There are 149 days left in the year.

On this date:

In 1916, the United States reached agreement with Denmark to purchase the Danish Virgin Islands for $25 million.

In 1944, Anne Frank, 15, was arrested along with her sister, parents and four others by German security after hiding for two years inside a building in Amsterdam. (Anne, who'd kept a now-famous diary during her time in hiding, died in March 1945 at the Bergen-Belsen Nazi concentration camp.)

Thought for Today:

"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world." — Anne Frank (1929-1945).