Today is Wednesday, Aug. 15, the 228th day of 2012. There are 138 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:

On Aug. 15, 1483, the Sistine Chapel was consecrated by Pope Sixtus IV.

On this date:

In 1057, Macbeth, King of Scots, was killed in battle by Malcolm, the eldest son of King Duncan, whom Macbeth had slain.

In 1769, Napoleon Bonaparte was born on the island of Corsica.

In 1812, the Battle of Fort Dearborn took place as Potawatomi warriors attacked a U.S. military garrison of about 100 people. (Most of the garrison was killed, while the remainder were taken prisoner.)

In 1914, the Panama Canal opened to traffic.

In 1935, humorist Will Rogers and aviator Wiley Post were killed when their airplane crashed near Point Barrow in the Alaska Territory.

In 1945, in a radio address, Japan's Emperor Hirohito announced that his country had accepted terms of surrender for ending World War II.

In 1947, India became independent after some 200 years of British rule.

In 1961, as workers began constructing a Berlin Wall made of concrete, East German soldier Conrad Schumann leapt to freedom over a tangle of barbed wire in a scene captured in a famous photograph.

In 1969, the Woodstock Music and Art Fair opened in upstate New York.

In 1971, President Richard Nixon announced a 90-day freeze on wages, prices and rents. Bahrain declared its independence from Britain.

In 1974, a gunman attempted to shoot South Korean President Park Chung-hee during a speech; although Park was unhurt, his wife was struck and killed, along with a teenage girl. (The gunman was later executed.)

In 1998, 29 people were killed by a car bomb that tore apart the center of Omagh (OH'-mah), Northern Ireland; a splinter group calling itself the Real IRA claimed responsibility.

Ten years ago: President George W. Bush, using Mount Rushmore as a dramatic backdrop, pressed Congress to give him a flexible, fast-moving homeland security department.

Five years ago: Former NBA referee Tim Donaghy (DAH'-nuh-hee) pleaded guilty to felony charges for taking cash payoffs from gamblers and betting on games he'd officiated in a scandal that rocked the league. (Donaghy spent 13 months in federal prison.) A magnitude-8 earthquake in Peru's southern desert killed some 540 people. Master jazz percussionist Max Roach died in New York at age 83.

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