Tuesday, August 25th
The 237th day of 2009.
There are 128 days left in the year.
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Today's Highlights in History
On Aug. 25, 1944, Paris was liberated by Allied forces after four years of Nazi occupation. (Go to article.)
On Aug. 25, 1918, Leonard Bernstein, American conductor, composer and pianist, was born. Following his death on Oct. 14, 1990, his obituary appeared in The Times. (Go to obit. | Other Birthdays)
Editorial Cartoon of the Day
On August 25, 1860, Harper's Weekly featured a cartoon about Abraham Lincoln, slavery, and the presidential election of 1860. (See the cartoon and read an explanation.)
On this date in:
1718 Hundreds of French colonists arrived in Louisiana, with some of them settling in present-day New Orleans.
1825 Uruguay declared its independence from Brazil.
1875 Captain Matthew Webb became the first person to swim across the English Channel, traveling from Dover, England, to Calais, France, in 22 hours.
1916 The National Park Service was established within the Department of the Interior.
1921 The United States signed a peace treaty with Germany.
1943 U.S. forces overran New Georgia in the Solomon Islands during World War II.
1950 President Harry S. Truman ordered the Army to seize control of the nation's railroads to avert a strike.
1975 The album "Born to Run" by Bruce Springsteen was released.
1981 The U.S. spacecraft Voyager 2 came within 63,000 miles of Saturn's cloud cover, sending back pictures and data about the ringed planet.
1984 Author Truman Capote was found dead at age 59.
1985 Samantha Smith, the schoolgirl whose letter to Soviet leader Yuri V. Andropov resulted in her peace tour of the communist country, was killed with her father in an airplane crash in Maine.
1997 The tobacco industry agreed to an $11.3 billion settlement with the state of Florida.
1998 Former Supreme Court Justice Lewis F. Powell died at age 90.
2003 Tennis champion Pete Sampras announced his retirement during a news conference at the U.S. Open in New York.
2008 Democrats opened their convention in Denver with a program that included a speech by Michelle Obama, wife of soon-to-be presidential nominee Barack Obama.
