Today is Wednesday, Aug. 21, the 233th day of 2013. There are 132 days left in the year.
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• Today's Highlight in History:
• On August 21, 1983, Philippine opposition leader Benigno S. Aquino Jr., ending a self-imposed exile in the United States, was shot dead moments after stepping off a plane at Manila International Airport.
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• On this date:
• In 1831, Nat Turner led a violent slave rebellion in Virginia resulting in the deaths of at least 55 white people. He was later executed.
• In 1858, the first of seven debates between Illinois senatorial contenders Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas took place.
• In 1863, pro-Confederate raiders attacked Lawrence, Kan., massacring the men and destroying the town's buildings.
• In 1911, Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" was stolen from the Louvre Museum in Paris. The painting was recovered two years later in Italy.
• In 1912, the Boy Scouts of America named its first Eagle Scout, Arthur Rose Eldred of Troop 1 in Rockville Centre, N.Y.
• In 1940, exiled Communist revolutionary Leon Trotsky died in a Mexican hospital from wounds inflicted by an assassin the day before.
• In 1959, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed an executive order making Hawaii the 50th state.
• In 1963, martial law was declared in South Vietnam as police and army troops began a violent crackdown on Buddhist anti-government protesters.
• In 1972, the Republican National Convention opened in Miami Beach.
• In 1983, the musical play "La Cage Aux Folles" opened on Broadway.
• In 1991, the hard-line coup against Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev collapsed in the face of a popular uprising led by Russian Federation President Boris N. Yeltsin.
• In 1993, in a serious setback for NASA, engineers lost contact with the Mars Observer spacecraft as it was about to reach the red planet on a $980 million mission.

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