Today is Monday, August 9, the 221st day of 2010. There are 144 days left in the year.
480 B.C. _ Persia defeats Spartan king Leonidas at Thermopylae
1786 _ First ascent of Mt Blanc
1849 _ Hungarian Republic crushed by Austria and Russia
1854 _ Henry David Thoreau publishes ``Walden"
1942 _ British arrests Indian nationalist Mohandas K. Gandhi
1945 _ U.S. drops second atomic bomb ``Fat Man" on Japan destroys part of Nagasaki
1965 _ Singapore gains independence from Malaysia (National Day)
1974 _ Richard Nixon resigns presidency, V.P. Gerald Ford becomes 38th president
1988 _ Just one day after 8/8/88 N.Y.'s daily number is 888
1990 _ 12 Arab leaders agree to send pan-Arab forces to protect Saudi Arabia