Today is Thursday, Aug. 5, the 217th day of 2010. There are 148 days left in the year.

On this date:

In 1864, during the Civil War, Union Admiral David G. Farragut led his fleet to victory in the Battle of Mobile Bay, Ala.

In 1884, the cornerstone for the Statue of Liberty's pedestal was laid on Bedloe's Island in New York Harbor.

In 1924, the comic strip "Little Orphan Annie," by Harold Gray, made its debut.

In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the National Labor Board, which was later replaced with the National Labor Relations Board.

In 1953, Operation Big Switch began as prisoners taken during the Korean conflict were exchanged at Panmunjom.

In 1960, the West African nation of Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso) became fully independent of French rule.

In 1962, actress Marilyn Monroe, 36, was found dead in her Los Angeles home; her death was ruled a probable suicide from an overdose of sleeping pills.

In 1963, the United States, Britain and the Soviet Union signed a treaty in Moscow banning nuclear tests in the atmosphere, in space and underwater.

In 1968, the Republican national convention convened in Miami Beach.

In 1969, the US space probe Mariner 7 flew by Mars, sending back photographs and scientific data.

In 1984, actor Richard Burton died in Geneva, Switzerland, at age 58.

In 2000, President Bill Clinton vetoed a Republican-sponsored tax cut for married couples, describing it as "the first installment of a fiscally reckless tax strategy." Actor Sir Alec Guinness died at a southern England hospital at age 86.

Thought for Today:

"We are all snobs of the Infinite, parvenus of the Eternal." — James Gibbons Huneker, American author and critic (1860-1921).