Today in History in 1858 in the United States, the first in a series of debates takes place between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas.

Our on this day in history archives contain over 200,000 events, birthdays and deaths from 6,000 years of history. Here is a roundup of a few of them:

August 21 is the 233rd day of the year (234th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 132 days remaining until the end of the year.

EVENTS

1140 – China: Song Dynasty general Yue Fei defeats an army led by Jin Dynasty general Wanyan Wuzhu at the Battle of Yancheng during the Jin-Song Wars.

1192 – Minamoto Yoritomo becomes de facto ruler of Japan.

1526 – Spanish explorer Alonso de Salazar reaches the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean.

1680 – Pueblo Native Americans capture Santa Fe from the Spanish during the Pueblo Revolt.

1689 – The Battle of Dunkeld takes place in Scotland.

1728 – Vitus Bering discovers Saint Lawrence Island in the now-named Bering Sea.

1770 – James Cook formally claims eastern Australia for Great Britain, naming it New South Wales.

1772 – Half a century of parliamentary rule in Sweden is ended when King Gustav III adopts a new constitution.

1778 – American Revolutionary War: British forces begin besieging the French outpost of Pondicherry in India.

1810 – The Swedish parliament elects Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte as crown prince.

1821 – Jarvis Island is discovered by the crew of the ship Eliza Frances.

1831 – Nat Turner leads black slaves and free blacks in a rebellion.

1842 – The city of Hobart, capital of Tasmania, is founded.

1852 – Tlingits destroy Fort Selkirk, Yukon.

1858 – In the United States, the first in a series of debates takes place between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas.

1863 – Lawrence, Kansas is destroyed by Confederate troops.

1883 – A Force 5 tornado strikes Rochester, Minnesota.

1888 – The first successful adding machine in the US is patented by William Seward Burroughs.

1891 – Chilean Civil War: The Battle of Concon takes place.

1897 – Oldsmobile, a brand of American automobiles, is founded.

1911 – In the night to August 22, Leonardo da Vinci's famous painting, the Mona Lisa, is stolen from the Louvre in Paris. It is recovered two years later.

1914 – World War I: Battle of Charleroi - a successful German attack across the River Sambre.

1918 – World War I: The Second Battle of the Somme begins.

1940 – Former Bolshevik revolutionary Leon Trotsky dies in Mexico City, one day after being wounded with an ice-ax.

1942 – World War II Guadalcanal Campaign: American forces defeat an attack from Imperial Japanese Army soldiers in the Battle of Tenaru.

1942 – World War II: The flag of Nazi Germany is put on top of Mount Elbrus, the highest point in the Caucasus mountains.

1944 – World War II: The Dumbarton Oaks Conference begins, on the way to creating the UN.

1944 – World War II: Canadian and Polish units capture the strategic town of Falaise, Calvados, France.

1957 – The Soviet Union successfully conducts a long-range test flight of the R-7 Semyorka, the first intercontinental ballistic missile.

1959 – Hawaii becomes the 50th State of the United States.

1961 – Motown releases what would become its first Number One hit, Please, Mr. Postman by the Marvelettes.

1963 – The Army of the Republic of Vietnam Special Forces loyal to Ngo Dinh Nhu, brother of Ngo Dinh Diem, vandalizes Buddhist pagodas, arresting thousands and leaving an estimated hundreds dead.

1968 – The Prague Spring uprising in Czechoslovakia is brutally crushed by Warsaw Pact forces.

1969 – An Australian, Denis Michael Rohan, sets the Al-Aqsa Mosque on fire.

1971 – A bomb explodes at a Liberal Party campaign rally in Manila, Philippines, injuring several anti-Ferdinand Marcos candidates.

1979 – Soviet dancer Alexander Godunov defects to the United States.

1982 – Lebanese Civil War: The first troops of a multinational force lands in Beirut to oversee the Palestinian Liberation Organization's withdrawal from Lebanon.

1983 – Filipino opposition leader Benigno Aquino, Jr. is murdered at Manila International Airport, on his return from exile.

1986 – Carbon dioxide gas erupts from the volcanic Lake Nyos in Cameroon, killing up to 1,800 people, within a 20 km range, as they slept.

1987 – Dirty Dancing has its first showing in the United States.

1991 – Latvia declares its independence from the Soviet Union.

1991 – The August Coup, a coup against Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, fails.

1993 – NASA loses contact with the Mars Observer spacecraft.

2001 – NATO decides to send a peacekeeping force to the Republic of Macedonia.

2001 – The International Red Cross announces that Tajikistan is being struck by a famine, and calls for aid to Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

2007 – Hurricane Dean makes landfall in Costa Maya, Mexico, as a category 5 hurricane.

2010 – Australia's 2010 General Election is the closest in years with little to separate Julia Gillard of the Australian Labor Party and Tony Abbott of the Conservative Liberal Party of Australia. Through the support of independent MPs, Julia Gillard is allowed to stay on as Prime Minister of Australia.

2013 – Chemical attacks are carried out in Ghouta, Syria, during the Syrian Civil War, killing hundreds of people.

2016 – The 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, end.

2017 – American naval ship "USS John S. McCain" collides with a merchant vessel near Singapore, killing 11 sailors.

2017 – A total solar eclipse is seen across several states of the United States, from Oregon to South Carolina, with partial eclipses seen over several other countries and the North Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.

2019 – Brazil's Institute for Space Research reports a record number of fires burning in the Amazon rainforest, with 36,000 in the year up to this date, and smoke reaching as far south as Sao Paulo.