WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 8, 2007

Today is Wednesday, August 8, the 219th day of 2007. There are 146 days left in the year.

1609 _ Venetian senate examines Galileo Galilei's telescope

1815 _ Napoleon Bonaparte set sail for exile on St. Helena

1876 _ Thomas Edison patents mimeograph

1890 _ Daughters of the American Revolution organizes

1900 _ 1st Davis Cup tennis matches, held in Boston

1919 _ Treaty of Rawalpindi, British recognize Afghanistan's independence

1929 _ The first airship flight around the Earth flying eastward begins

1929 _ German airship Graf Zeppelin begins a round-the-world flight

1940 _ Battle of Britain began as Germany launches air attacks

1945 _ President Harry S. Truman signs U.N. Charter

1945 _ USSR declares war against Japan in WW II

1945 _ USSR establishes a communist government in North Korea

1953 _ The U.S. and South Korea initial a mutual security pact

1974 _ Pres Richard M Nixon announced he'd resign his office on Aug. 09

1985 _ Japan launches Planet A, a probe to Halley's comet

1988 _ Russian troops begin pull out of Afghanistan after a nin-year war

1988 _ South Africa declares cease-fire in Angola

1990 _ Iraq annexes Kuwait