Today is Wednesday, Aug. 17, the 230th day of 2016. There are 136 days left in the year.

Today’s birthdays: Former Chinese president Jiang Zemin is 90. Author V.S. Naipaul is 84. Former MLB All-Star Boog Powell is 75. Actor Robert DeNiro is 73. Movie director Martha Coolidge is 70. Actor-screenwriter Julian Fellowes is 67. Tennis Hall of Famer Guillermo Vilas is 64. Olympic gold medal figure skater Robin Cousins is 59. Singer Belinda Carlisle is 58. Author Jonathan Franzen is 57. Actor Sean Penn is 56. Jazz musician Everette Harp is 55. Rock musician Jill Cunniff is 50. Singer Donnie Wahlberg is 47. Tennis Hall of Famer Jim Courier is 46.

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

In 1982, the first commercially produced compact discs, a recording of ABBA’s ‘‘The Visitors,’’ were pressed at a Philips factory in West Germany.

In 1999, more than 17,000 people were killed when a magnitude 7.4 earthquake struck Turkey.

Last year, a bomb exploded within a central Bangkok shrine that was among the city’s most popular tourist spots, killing at least 20 people and injuring more than 100. (Two men are facing trial for the bombing, but one has maintained he was tortured to obtain a confession.)