Today is Thursday, August 12, the 224th day of 2010. There are 141 days left in the year.

On this date:

In 1499, Turks defeat Venetian fleet at Sapienza, Italy. The battle is the one of several wars between the two sides.

In 1530, Florence is restored to Medici family in Italy by Holy Roman Empire troops.

In 1687, Duke of Lorraine and Louis of Baden defeat Turks under Suleiman Pasha at Battle of Mohacs, ending Turkish occupation of Hungary.

In 1759, Russian and Austrian forces defeat Prussians at Kunersdorf, Germany, and Dresden falls into Austrian hands.

In 1813, Austria declares war on France.

In 1898, Hawaiian Islands in Pacific are transferred to United States.

In 1898, fighting in the Spanish-American War came to an end.

In 1941, French Marshal Henri Philippe Petain calls on his countrymen to give full support to Nazi Germany.

In 1953, the Soviet Union conducted a secret test of its first hydrogen bomb.

In 1958, Cuban rebel leader Fidel Castro announces the complete "liberation" of the Sierra Maestra area of Oriente Province from President Battista's army. Three-hundred Cuban soldiers are killed and 420 captured.

In 1960, the first balloon communications satellite — the Echo 1 — was launched by the United States from Cape Canaveral.

In 1961, the East German parliament votes to erect a wall separating east Berlin from the western part. It goes up the same night.

In 1962, one day after launching Andrian Nikolayev into orbit, the Soviet Union also sent up cosmonaut Pavel Popovich; both men landed safely August 15.

In 1971, Syria severs diplomatic relations with Jordan as border fighting breaks out.

In 1972, last US ground combat unit in South Vietnam is deactivated.

In 1985, the world's worst single-aircraft disaster occurred as a crippled Japan Air Lines Boeing 747 on a domestic flight crashed into a mountain, killing 520 people. (Four people survived.)

In 1988, Sein Lwin resigns as president of Myanmar and all other major posts following three days of violent anti-government protests.

In 1990, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein offers to withdraw from Kuwait if Israel withdraws from occupied territories.

In 1991, Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev authorises the establishment of an agency to oversee the denationalisation of large-scale state enterprises.

In 1993, American troops open fire on stone-throwing Somali civilians in Mogadishu. Italy, protesting the new UN military aggressiveness, asks to pull out of the Somali capital.

In 2000, the Russian nuclear submarine Kursk and its 118-man crew were lost during naval exercises in the Barents Sea.

Thought for Today

"Bigotry has no head, and cannot think; no heart, and cannot feel." — Daniel O'Connell, Irish political leader (1775-1847).