August 25th in History
August 25 is the 237th day of the year (238th in leap years). There are 126 days remaining until the end of the year. (Illustration: A lithograph of life on the Moon, published by the New York Sun as part of the Great Moon Hoax, which began August 25, 1835.)
On this day in history —
- Galileo demonstrates his first telescope to Venetian lawmakers (1609)
- The Great Moon Hoax: The New York Sun prints the first of six articles about the supposed discovery of life on the Moon by Sir John Herschel (1835)
- Captain Matthew Webb becomes the first person to swim across the English Channel (1875)
- World War II: Paris is liberated by the Allies (1944)
- Voyager 2 makes its closest approach to Saturn (1981) and Neptune (1989)
- Linus Torvalds announces the first version of Linux (1991)
- Voyager 1 becomes the first man-made object to enter interstellar space (2012)
It’s the birthday of —
- Ivan the Terrible, monarch (1530)
- Allan Pinkerton, detective and spy (1819)
- Bret Harte, author and poet (1836)
- Ludwig II of Bavaria, Swan King and mad monarch (1845)
- Hans Krebs, Nobel laureate (1900)
- Michael Rennie, actor (1909)
- Ruby Keeler, actress and dancer (1910)
- Walt Kelly, cartoonist (1913)
- Frederick Robbins, Nobel laureate (1916)
- Mel Ferrer, actor and director (1917)
- Leonard Bernstein, conductor and composer (1918)
- George Wallace, Alabama governor (1919)
- Monty Hall, game show host (1921)
- Sean Connery, actor (1930)
- Regis Philbin, television host (1931)
- Frederick Forsyth, author (1938)
- Rollie Fingers, baseball player (1946)
- Gene Simmons, singer-songwriter, leader of Kiss (1949)
- Elvis Costello, singer-songwriter (1954)
- Tim Burton, director and producer (1958)
- Billy Ray Cyrus, country musician (1961)
- Blair Underwood, actor (1964)
- Rachael Ray, television chef (1968)
- Claudia Schiffer, supermodel (1970)
Deaths —
- Pliny the Elder, Roman commander and philosopher (79)
- David Hume, economist and philosopher (1776)
- James Watt, engineer and electrical unit namesake (1819)
- Friedrich Nietzsche, philosopher (1900)
- Henri Becquerel, chemist and Nobel laureate (1908)
- John Birch, soldier and missionary, supposed first victim of the Cold War (1945)
- Alfred Kinsey, sexologist (1956)
- Paul Muni, actor (1967)
- George Lincoln Rockwell, founder of the American Nazi Party (1967)
- Stan Kenton, jazz pianist and composer (1979)
- Gower Champion, director and choreographer (1980)
- Truman Capote, author (1984)
- Carl Barks, creator of Uncle Scrooge (2000)
- Aaliyah, singer and dancer (2001)
- Ted Kennedy, US senator (2009)
- Neil Armstrong, first man to set foot on the Moon (2012)
Holidays and Celebrations —
- Day of Songun (North Korea)
- Independence Day (Uruguay)
- Liberation Day (Paris)
- Opiconsivia (ancient Rome)
- Soldier’s Day (Brazil)
Informal and made-up holidays include Kiss and Make Up Day, National Park Service Day, National Second-Hand Wardrobe Day, and National Whisky Sour Day.
(*O.S., or Old Style, when used, refers to the fact that Russia did not convert from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar until 1918.)