Today in History

Today is Friday, Aug. 25, the 237th day of 2023. There are 128 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On August 25, 1944, during World War II, Paris was liberated by Allied forces after four years of Nazi occupation.

On this date:

In 1718, hundreds of French colonists arrived in Louisiana, with some settling in present-day New Orleans.

In 1875, Capt. Matthew Webb became the first person to swim across the English Channel, getting from Dover, England, to Calais (ka-LAY’), France, in 22 hours.

In 1928, an expedition led by Richard E. Byrd set sail from Hoboken, N.J., on its journey to Antarctica.

In 1958, the game show “Concentration” premiered on NBC-TV.

In 1980, the Broadway musical “42nd Street” opened. (Producer David Merrick stunned the cast and audience during the curtain call by announcing that the show’s director, Gower Champion, had died earlier that day.)

In 1981, the U.S. spacecraft Voyager 2 came within 63,000 miles of Saturn’s cloud cover, sending back pictures of and data about the ringed planet.

In 1985, Samantha Smith, 13, the schoolgirl whose letter to Yuri V. Andropov resulted in her famous peace tour of the Soviet Union, died with her father in an airliner crash in Auburn, Maine.

In 2001, R&B singer Aaliyah (ah-LEE’-yah) was killed with eight others in a plane crash in the Bahamas; she was 22.

In 2009, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, the liberal lion of the U.S. Senate, died at age 77 in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, after a battle with a brain tumor.

In 2014, a funeral was held in St. Louis for Michael Brown, the Black 18-year-old who was shot to death by a police officer in suburban Ferguson.

In 2020, two people were shot to death and a third was wounded as 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse opened fire with an AR-15-style rifle during a third night of protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin, over the police shooting of a Black man, Jacob Blake. (Rittenhouse, who was taken into custody in Illinois the next day, said he was defending himself after the three men attacked him as he tried to protect businesses from protesters; he was acquitted on all charges, including homicide.)

Ten years ago: Syria agreed to a U.N. investigation into an alleged chemical weapons attack outside Damascus - a deal a senior White House official dismissed as “too late to be credible,” saying the United States had “very little doubt” President Bashar Assad’s forces used such weapons. Tokyo beat Chula Vista, California, 6-4 to win the Little League World Series in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Sixteen-year-old New Zealander Lydia Ko succeeded in defending her title at the Canadian Women’s Open with a five-stroke victory over Karine Icher.

Five years ago: Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona, who had spent years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam before a 35-year political career that took him to the Republican presidential nomination, died at the age of 81 after battling brain cancer for more than a year. After initially threatening Hawaii as a Category 5 hurricane, Tropical Storm Lane began to break apart as it veered west into the open Pacific; rainfall totals from the storm on Hawaii’s Big Island approached four feet.

One year ago: A judge ordered the Justice Department to make public a redacted version of the affidavit it relied on when federal agents searched the Florida estate of Donald Trump to look for classified documents. Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a major buildup of his country’s military forces in an apparent effort to replenish troops that have suffered heavy losses in six months of bloody warfare and prepare for a long, grinding fight ahead in Ukraine. Regulators approved California's plans to require all new cars, trucks and SUVs to run on electricity or hydrogen by 2035.

Today’s Birthdays: Actor Tom Skerritt is 90. Author Frederick Forsyth is 85. Movie director John Badham is 84. Filmmaker Marshall Brickman is 84. R&B singer Walter Williams (The O’Jays) is 80. Actor Anthony Heald is 79. Rock singer-actor Gene Simmons is 74. Actor John Savage is 74. Country singer-musician Henry Paul (Outlaws; Blackhawk) is 74. Rock singer Rob Halford is 72. Rock musician Geoff Downes (Asia) is 71. Rock singer Elvis Costello is 69. Movie director Tim Burton is 65. Actor Christian LeBlanc is 65. Actor Ashley Crow is 63. Actor Ally Walker is 62. Country singer Billy Ray Cyrus is 62. Actor Joanne Whalley is 62. Rock musician Vivian Campbell (Def Leppard) is 61. Actor Blair Underwood is 59. Actor Robert Maschio is 57. Rap DJ Terminator X (Public Enemy) is 57. Alternative country singer Jeff Tweedy (Wilco) is 56. Actor David Alan Basche (BAYSH) is 55. Television chef Rachael Ray is 55. Actor Cameron Mathison is 54. Country singer Jo Dee Messina is 53. Model Claudia Schiffer is 53. Country singer Brice Long is 52. Actor Nathan Page is 52. Actor-writer-director Ben Falcone is 50. Actor Eric Millegan is 49. Actor Alexander Skarsgard is 47. Actor Jonathan Togo is 46. Actor Kel Mitchell is 45. Actor Rachel Bilson is 42. Actor Blake Lively is 36. Actor Josh Flitter is 29.