Today in History

Today is Monday, August 3, the 215th day of 2015. There are 150 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:

On August 3, 1492, Christopher Columbus set sail from Palos, Spain, on a voyage that took him to the present-day Americas.

On this date:

In 1807, former Vice President Aaron Burr went on trial before a federal court in Richmond, Virginia, charged with treason. (He was acquitted less than a month later.)

In 1863, the first thoroughbred horse races took place at the Saratoga Race Course in Saratoga Springs, New York.

In 1914, Germany declared war on France at the onset of World War I.

In 1936, Jesse Owens of the United States won the first of his four gold medals at the Berlin Olympics as he took the 100-meter sprint.

In 1943, Gen. George S. Patton slapped a private at an army hospital in Sicily, accusing him of cowardice. (Patton was later ordered by Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower to apologize for this and a second, similar episode.)

In 1949, the National Basketball Association was formed as a merger of the Basketball Association of America and the National Basketball League.

In 1958, the nuclear-powered submarine USS Nautilus became the first vessel to cross the North Pole underwater.

In 1966, comedian Lenny Bruce, 40, was found dead in his Los Angeles home.

In 1972, the U.S. Senate ratified the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union. (The U.S. unilaterally withdrew from the treaty in 2002.)

In 1981, U.S. air traffic controllers went on strike, despite a warning from President Ronald Reagan they would be fired, which they were.

In 1993, the Senate voted 96-3 to confirm U.S. Supreme Court nominee Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

In 1994, Arkansas carried out the nation's first triple execution in 32 years. Stephen G. Breyer was sworn in as the Supreme Court's newest justice in a private ceremony at Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist's Vermont summer home.

Ten years ago: Fourteen Marines from a Reserve unit in Ohio were killed in a roadside bombing in Iraq. Spacewalking astronaut Stephen Robinson removed two worrisome pieces of filler material from the shuttle Discovery's belly in an unprecedented space repair job. The journal Nature reported that a South Korean researcher had created the world's first cloned dog, an Afghan hound named "Snuppy." (Although the scientist, Hwang Woo-suk, was later disgraced over faked research, the cloning of Snuppy was independently confirmed.)

Five years ago: Engineers began pumping heavy drilling mud into the blown-out Gulf of Mexico oil well in an attempt to permanently plug the leak. A warehouse driver killed eight co-workers and himself in a shooting rampage at a Manchester, Connecticut, beer distributorship.

One year ago: Israel withdrew most of its ground troops from the Gaza Strip in an apparent winding down of a nearly monthlong operation against Hamas that had left more than 1,800 Palestinians and more than 60 Israelis dead. A strong earthquake in China's southern Yunnan province toppled thousands of homes, killing more than 600 people. Mystery writer Dorothy Salisbury Davis, 98, died in Palisades, New York.

Today's Birthdays: Football Hall-of-Fame coach Marv Levy is 90. Singer Tony Bennett is 89. Actor Martin Sheen is 75. College and Pro Football Hall of Famer Lance Alworth is 75. Lifestyle guru Martha Stewart is 74. Singer Beverly Lee (The Shirelles) is 74. Rock musician B.B. Dickerson is 66. Movie director John Landis is 65. Actress JoMarie Payton is 65. Actor Jay North (TV: "Dennis the Menace") is 64. Hockey Hall-of-Famer Marcel Dionne is 64. Country musician Randy Scruggs is 62. Actor Philip Casnoff is 61. Actor John C. McGinley is 56. Rock singer-musician Lee Rocker (The Stray Cats) is 54. Actress Lisa Ann Walter is 54. Rock singer James Hetfield (Metallica) is 52. Rock singer-musician Ed Roland (Collective Soul) is 52. Actor Isaiah Washington is 52. Country musician Dean Sams (Lonestar) is 49. Rock musician Stephen Carpenter (Deftones) is 45. Hip-hop artist Spinderella (Salt-N-Pepa) is 44. Actress Brigid Brannagh is 43. Actor Michael Ealy is 42. Country musician Jimmy De Martini (Zac Brown Band) is 39. NFL quarterback Tom Brady is 38. Actress Evangeline Lilly is 36. Actress Mamie Gummer is 32. Country singer Whitney Duncan is 31. Actor Jon Foster is 31. Actress Georgina Haig is 30. Singer Holly Arnstein (Dream) is 30. Actress Tanya Fischer is 30. Pop-rock musician Brent Kutzle (OneRepublic) is 30.

Thought for Today: "We are healed of a suffering only by experiencing it to the full." -- Marcel Proust, French author (1871-1922).

Copyright 2015, The Associated Press. All rights reserved.