TODAY is Thursday, July 20, the 201st day of 2006. There are 164 days left in the year.

ON THIS DATE:In 1810, Colombia declared independence from Spain.

In 1881, Sioux Indian leader Sitting Bull, a fugitive since the Battle of the Little Big Horn, surrendered to federal troops.

In 1944, an attempt by a group of German officials to assassinate Adolf Hitler with a bomb failed as the explosion at Hitler’s Rastenburg headquarters only wounded the Nazi leader.

In 1999, after 38 years at the bottom of the Atlantic, astronaut Gus Grissom’s Liberty Bell 7 Mercury capsule was lifted to the surface.THOUGHT FOR TODAY

“Courage without conscience is a wild beast.” — Robert G. Ingersoll, American lawyer and politician (1833-1899).