Today is Thursday, Aug. 19, the 231st day of 2010. There are 134 days left in the year.

On this date:

In 1812, the USS Constitution defeated the British frigate Guerriere off Nova Scotia during the War of 1812.

In 1909, the first automobile races were run at the just-opened Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

In 1934, a plebiscite in Germany approved the vesting of sole executive power in Adolf Hitler.

In 1942, during World War II, about 6,000 Canadian and British soldiers launched a disastrous raid against the Germans at Dieppe, France, suffering more than 50-percent casualties.

In 1955, severe flooding in the northeastern U.S. claimed some 200 lives.

In 1960, a tribunal in Moscow convicted American U2 pilot Francis Gary Powers of espionage, two days after his 31st birthday. (Although sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment, Powers was returned to the United States in 1962 as part of a prisoner exchange.)

In 1976, President Gerald R. Ford won the Republican presidential nomination at the party's convention in Kansas City.

In 1980, 301 people aboard a Saudi Arabian L-1011 died as the jetliner made a fiery emergency return to the Riyadh airport.

In 1991, Soviet hard-liners announced to a shocked world that President Mikhail S. Gorbachev had been removed from power. (The coup attempt collapsed two days later.)

Thought for Today:

"A mere madness, to live like a wretch and die rich." — Robert Burton, English author (1577-1640).