On This Day in History - August 25th - Almanac

Today is Wednesday, Aug. 25, the 237th day of 2021 with 128 to follow.

The moon is waning. Morning stars are Jupiter, Neptune, Saturn and Uranus. Evening stars are Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Neptune, Saturn, Uranus and Venus.

Those born on this date are under the sign of Virgo. They include Czar Ivan IV, "Ivan the Terrible," of Russia, in 1530; composer/conductor Leonard Bernstein in 1918; former Alabama Gov. George Wallace in 1919; game show host Monty Hall in 1921; tennis champion Althea Gibson in 1927; actor Sean Connery in 1930 (age 91); TV personality Regis Philbin in 1931; actor Tom Skerritt in 1933 (age 88); writer Frederick Forsyth in 1938 (age 83); baseball Hall of Fame member Rollie Fingers in 1946 (age 75); writer Martin Amis in 1949 (age 72); actor John Savage in 1949 (age 72); rock singer Gene Simmons in 1949 (age 72); singer/songwriter Elvis Costello in 1954 (age 67); film director Tim Burton in 1958 (age 63); country singer Billy Ray Cyrus in 1961 (age 60); actor Ally Walker in 1961 (age 60); actor Blair Underwood in 1964 (age 57); actor Tom Hollander in 1967 (age 54); television cook Rachael Ray in 1968 (age 53); supermodel Claudia Schiffer in 1970 (age 51); actor Alexander Skarsgard in 1976 (age 45); actor Kel Mitchell in 1978 (age 43); actor Rachel Bilson in 1981 (age 40); actor Blake Lively in 1987 (age 34); actor China Anne McClain in 1998 (age 23).

On this date in history:

In 1609, Galileo Galilei exhibited his first telescope in Venice.

In 1718, the city of New Orleans was founded.

In 1875, Matthew Webb, a 27-year-old British merchant navy captain, became the first person known to successfully swim the English Channel.

In 1944, allied forces and the French resistance freed the city of Paris from German occupation during World War II.

In 1967, a sniper assassinated American Nazi leader George Lincoln Rockwell in Arlington, Va.

In 1984, In Cold Blood and Breakfast at Tiffany's author Truman Capote died at age 59.

In 1985, Samantha Smith, 13, was killed with her father and six other people in a plane crash in Maine. Samantha's 1983 letter to Soviet President Yuri Andropov about her fear of nuclear war earned her a visit to the Soviet Union.

In 1989, Voyager 2, after a 4 billion-mile journey, made its closest pass over Neptune, sending back images of southern lights and its moon, Triton, to Earth.

In 2009, U.S. Sen. Edward "Ted" Kennedy, D-Mass., a liberal fixture in the Senate for 46 years, died of brain cancer at the age of 77.

In 2012, former astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, died in Cincinnati. He was 82.

In 2017, Hurricane Harvey made landfall on San Jose Island, Texas, as a Category 4 storm. Harvey killed more than 100 people and caused $125 billion in damage.

In 2019, Rory McIlroy won the FedEx Cup at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, taking home the largest payout in golf history -- $15 million.

In 2020, the Africa Regional Certification Commission declared Africa free of wild polio after four years without a case.

A thought for the day: Neil Armstrong said the Apollo missions demonstrated that "humanity is not forever chained to this planet, and our visions go rather further than that, and our opportunities are unlimited."