DAILY ALMANAC
Today is Wednesday, Aug. 25, the 237th day of 2021. There are 128 days left in the year.
On this date:
1718: Hundreds of French colonists arrived in Louisiana, with some settling in present-day New Orleans.
1875: Capt. Matthew Webb became the first person to swim across the English Channel, getting from Dover, England, to Calais, France, in 22 hours.
1916: President Woodrow Wilson signed an act establishing the National Park Service within the Department of the Interior.
1928: An expedition led by Richard E. Byrd set sail from Hoboken, New Jersey, on its journey to Antarctica.
1944: During World War II, Paris was liberated by Allied forces after four years of Nazi occupation.
1975: The Bruce Springsteen album “Born to Run” was released by Columbia Records.
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.
2001: R&B singer Aaliyah was killed with eight others in a plane crash in the Bahamas; she was 22.
2012: Neil Armstrong, 82, who commanded the historic Apollo 11 lunar landing and was the first man to set foot on the moon in July 1969, died in Cincinnati, Ohio.
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.
2014: A funeral was held in St. Louis for Michael Brown, the Black 18year-old who was shot to death by a police officer in suburban Ferguson, Missouri.
2017: Hurricane Harvey, the fiercest hurricane to hit the U.S. in more than a decade, made landfall near Corpus Christi, Texas, with 130 mph sustained winds; the storm would deliver five days of rain totaling close to 52 inches, the heaviest tropical downpour ever recorded in the continental U.S. The hurricane left at least 68 people dead and caused an estimated $125 billion in damage in Texas.
2018: Sen. 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.
Actor Tom Skerritt is 88. Singer Walter Williams of The O’jays is 78. Bassist Gene Simmons of Kiss is 72. Singer Rob Halford of Judas Priest is 70. Keyboardist Geoff Downes of Asia is 69. Musician Elvis Costello is 67. Director Tim Burton is 63. Actor Ashley Crow
(“Heroes”) is 61. Country singer-actor Billy Ray Cyrus is 60. Guitarist
Vivian Campbell of Def Leppard is 59. DJ Terminator X of Public Enemy is 55. Singer Jeff Tweedy of Wilco is 54. TV chef Rachael Ray is 53. Model Claudia Schiffer is 51. Actor
Alexander Skarsgard (“Big Little Lies,” “True Blood”) is 45. Actor Kel Mitchell
(“Kenan and Kel”) is 43. Actor Rachel Bilson (“Hart of Dixie,” “The O.C.”) is 40. Actor Blake Lively (“Gossip Girl”) is 34.