Today is Friday, Aug. 17, the 230th day of 2012. There are 136 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:

On Aug. 17, 1982, the first commercially produced compact discs, a recording of ABBA's "The Visitors," were pressed at a Philips factory near Hanover, West Germany.

On this date:

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

In 1912, the second movie inspired by the Titanic disaster, a German production titled "In Nacht und Eis" (In Night and Ice), was released. (Unlike the first, "Saved From the Titanic," "In Nacht und Eis" still exists.)

In 1915, a mob in Cobb County, Ga., lynched Jewish businessman Leo Frank, whose death sentence for the murder of 13-year-old Mary Phagan had been commuted to life imprisonment. (Frank, who'd maintained his innocence, was pardoned by the state of Georgia in 1986.)

In 1942, during World War II, U.S. 8th Air Force bombers attacked German forces in Rouen, France. U.S. Marines raided a Japanese seaplane base on Makin Island.

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

In 1960, the newly renamed Beatles (formerly the Silver Beetles) began their first gig in Hamburg, West Germany, at the Indra Club. The West African country of Gabon became independent of France.

In 1961, the United States and 19 Latin American countries signed the Charter of Punta del Este in Uruguay, creating the Alliance for Progress aimed at promoting economic growth and social justice.

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 1969, Hurricane Camille slammed into the Mississippi coast as a Category 5 storm that was blamed for 256 U.S. deaths, three in Cuba.

In 1978, the first successful trans-Atlantic balloon flight ended as Maxie Anderson, Ben Abruzzo and Larry Newman landed their Double Eagle II outside Paris.

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