TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT 1944

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

ALSO 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, N.J., on its journey to Antarctica.

1975

The Bruce Springsteen album “Born to Run” was released by Columbia Records.

1981

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

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.

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.

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.