Today is Wednesday, August 12, the 224th day of 2009. There are 141 days left in the year.
1553 _ Pope Julius III orders confiscation and burning of the Talmud
1851 _ Isaac Singer granted patent for his sewing machine
1877 _ Thomas Edison invents the Edisonphone, a sound recording device
1915 _ ``Of Human Bondage," by William Somerset Maugham, published
1936 _ Diver Marjorie Gestring is youngest Olympic gold medallist (13 years and 268 days)
1953 _ Soviet Union conducts secret test of its first hydrogen bomb
1955 _ President Eisenhower raises minimum wage from $0.75 to $1 an hour
1981 _ IBM introduces the PC and PC-DOS version 1.0
1985 _ Japanese Boeing 747 crashes, 520 die (worst in-flight toll)
1988 _ Movie ``Last Temptation of Christ" is released