Today In History

Today is Tuesday, Aug. 25, the 238th day of 2020. There are 128 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

› 1944: During World War II, Paris was liberated by Allied forces after four years of Nazi occupation.

ON THIS DATE

› 1718: Hundreds of French colonists arrived in Louisiana, with some settling in present-day New Orleans.

› 1916: President Woodrow Wilson signed an act establishing the National Park Service within the Department of the Interior.

› 1958: President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a measure providing pensions for former U.S. presidents and their widows.

› 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.)

› 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.

› 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.

› 2017: Hurricane Harvey made landfall near Corpus Christi, Texas. The storm would deliver five days of rain totaling close to 52 inches, the heaviest tropical downpour ever recorded in the continental U.S.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Actor Sean Connery is 90. Actor Tom Skerritt is 87. Jazz musician Wayne Shorter is 87. R&B singer Walter Williams (The O’Jays) is 77. Actor Anthony Heald is 76. Rock singer-actor Gene Simmons is 71. Actor John Savage is 71. Author Martin Amis is 71. Country singer-musician Henry Paul (Outlaws; Blackhawk) is 71. Actor Ashley Crow is 60. Actor Ally Walker is 59. Country singer Cyrus (aka Billy Ray Cyrus) is 59. Actor Joanne Whalley is 59. Rock musician Vivian Campbell (Def Leppard) is 58. Actor Blair Underwood is 56. Actor Cameron Mathison is 51. Country singer Jo Dee Messina is 50. Model Claudia Schiffer is 50. Country singer Brice Long is 49. Actor-writer-director Ben Falcone is 47. Actor Kel Mitchell is 42. Actor Rachel Bilson is 39. Actor Blake Lively is 33. Actor Josh Flitter is 26.