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Today is Friday, August 13, the 225th day of 2010. There are 140 days left in the year.

On this date

In 1521, Spanish conqueror Hernando Cortez captured Tenochtitlan, present-day Mexico City, from the Aztecs.

In 1704, forces of the English Duke of Marlborough and Eugene of Savoy defeated the French at Blenheim, Bavaria, driving around 18,000 soldiers to drown in the Danube and saving Vienna from the French.

In 1788, Prussia joined Anglo-Dutch alliance to form Triple Alliance for preserving peace in Europe.

In 1792, French revolutionaries imprisoned France's royal family.

In 1814, Britain agreeed to hand back all Dutch colonial possessions including Indonesia.

In 1846, the American flag was raised for the first time in Los Angeles.

In 1898, US forces in the Philippines captured Manila from Spaniards in the Spanish-American War.

In 1932, Adolf Hitler rejected the post of vice chancellor of Germany, saying he was prepared to hold out "for all or nothing".

In 1937, Imperial Japanese forces attacked Chinese city of Shanghai.

In 1960, the first two-way telephone conversation by satellite took place with the help of Echo 1.

In 1961, Berlin was divided as East Germany sealed off the border between the city's eastern and western sectors and began building a wall and closing Brandenburg Gate to halt people fleeing the country.

In 1983, the Indian government started to erect a barbed-wire fence along the entire 2,500-mile border with Bangladesh to prevent the entry of illegal aliens. Resentment of Muslim immigrants from Bangladesh flared into weeks of violence in which 3,000 were killed.

In 1989, searchers in Ethiopia found the wreckage of a plane which had disappeared almost a week earlier while carrying Texas Congressman Mickey Leland and 14 other people — there were no survivors.

In 2001, Macedonia's rival political leaders signed a landmark peace accord aimed at ending six months of bloody conflicts and clearing the way for Nato troops to disarm ethnic Albanian rebels.

Thought for Today

"The great business of life is to be, to do, to do without, and to depart." — John, Viscount Morley of Blackburn, English journalist (1838-1923).