TODAY IN HISTORY

Today is Thursday, Aug. 17, the 229th day of 2017. There are 136 days left in the year. Today’s Highlight in History:

On Aug. 17, 1807, Robert Fulton’s North River Steamboat began heading up the Hudson River on its successful round trip between New York and Albany.

On this date:

In 1863, Federal batteries and ships began bombarding Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor during the Civil War, but the Confederates managed to hold on despite several days of pounding.

In 1943, the Allied conquest of Sicily during World War II was completed as U.S. and British forces entered Messina.

In 1945, Indonesian nationalists declared their independence from the Netherlands. The George Orwell novel “Animal Farm,” an allegorical satire of Soviet Communism, was first published in London by Martin Secker & Warburg.

In 1962, East German border guards shot and killed 18-year-old Peter Fechter, who had attempted to cross the Berlin Wall into the western sector.

In 1982, the first commercially produced compact discs, a recording of ABBA’s “The Visitors,” were pressed at a Philips factory near Hanover, West Germany.

In 1987, Rudolf Hess, the last member of Adolf Hitler’s inner circle, died at Spandau Prison at age 93, an apparent suicide.

In 1996, the Reform Party announced Ross Perot had been selected to be its first-ever presidential nominee, opting for the third-party’s founder over challenger Richard Lamm.

Today’s Birthdays: Former Chinese president Jiang Zemin is 91. Author V.S. Naipaul is 85. Actor Robert DeNiro is 74. Singer Belinda Carlisle is 59. Author Jonathan Franzen is 58. Actor Sean Penn is 57. Singer Maria McKee is 53. Singer Donnie Wahlberg is 48.

Thought for Today: “There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle, or the mirror that reflects it.” — Edith Wharton, American author (1862-1937).