On This Day In History: The Liberation of Paris

Paris is liberated after four years of Nazi occupation

Born on This Day

Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein

1918 - 1990

Composer and conductor known for "West Side Story," "Candide" and televised classical music lectures popularizing the genre.

Sean Connery

Sean Connery

1930 - 2020

Scottish actor known for portraying James Bond. Oscar-winner for "The Untouchables."

This June 1951 file picture shows US tennis player

Althea Gibson

1927 - 2003

Tennis player who was the first African American to win a Grand Slam title, breaking racial barriers in the sport.

Leonard BernsteinGetty Images

Sean ConneryGetty Images

Althea GibsonAFP via Getty Images

1921

AUG25

Franklin D. Roosevelt, age 39, is diagnosed with polio, also called infantile paralysis because it typically strikes much younger people. He will never regain the full use of his legs.

Timeline

Also on This Day in History

Discover more of the major events, famous births, notable deaths and everything else history-making that happened on August 25th

“The Great Moon Hoax” is published in the “New York Sun”

The first in a series of six articles announcing the supposed discovery of life on the moon appears in the New York Sun newspaper. The fictional stories became known as "The Great Moon Hoax."

2:26m read read

Englishman swims the Channel

Matthew Webb, a 27-year-old merchant navy captain, becomes the first known person to successfully swim the English Channel. Captain Webb accomplished the grueling 21-mile crossing, which really entailed 39 miles of swimming because of tidal currents, in 21 hours and 45 minutes. Webb set out to much fanfare the day before, on August 24. During […]

5:30m read read

Outlaw Bill Doolin is killed

The outlaw Bill Doolin is killed by a posse at Lawson, Oklahoma on the night of August 25, 1896. Born in Arkansas in 1858, William Doolin was never as hardened a criminal as some of his companions. He went west in 1881, finding work in Oklahoma at the big ranch of Oscar D. Halsell. Halsell took a […]

1:30m read read

Germans burn Belgian town of Louvain

Over the course of five days, beginning August 25, 1914, German troops stationed in the Belgian village of Louvain during the opening month of World War I burn and loot much of the town, executing hundreds of civilians. Located between Liege, the fortress town that saw heavy fighting during the first weeks of the German […]

Yangtze River peaks in Gaoyou, China, killing more than 10,000

On August 25, 1931, after months of torrential flooding, levees around the city of Gaoyou, China, break and the Yangtze River overflows, killing between 10,000 and 15,000 in a single night. The disastrous breach was part of a catastrophic flood that killed an estimated 3.7 million people directly and indirectly over the next several months, […]

1:34m read read

“The Wizard of Oz” opens in U.S. theaters

On August 25, 1939, The Wizard of Oz, which will become one of the best-loved movies in history, opens in theaters around the United States. Based on the 1900 children’s novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum (1856-1919), the film starred Judy Garland as the young Kansas farm girl Dorothy, who, after […]

1:58m read read

John Birch, inspiration to conservatives, killed by Chinese communists

On August 25, 1945, John Birch, an American missionary to China before the war and a captain in the Army during the war, is killed by Chinese communists days after the surrender of Japan, for no apparent reason. His death would inspire a small but vocal group of conservative anticommunists. After America had entered the […]

Truman orders army to seize control of railroads

On August 25, 1950, in anticipation of a crippling strike by railroad workers, President Harry S. Truman issues an executive order putting America’s railroads under the control of the U.S. Army, as of August 27, at 4:00 pm. Truman had already intervened in another railway dispute when union employees of the Chicago, North Shore and […]

1:28m read read

Momofuku Ando creates the first mass-market instant ramen

To help address the food shortage crisis in Japan after World War II, inventor and businessman Momofuku Ando develops Chicken Ramen, the first-ever instant noodles, on August 25, 1958. The shelf-stable noodles are readily available, take two minutes to cook and fill hungry bellies. Today, instant noodles are a ubiquitous global fast food—and not just […]

2:00m read read

Little Eva earns a #1 hit with “Loco-Motion”

On August 25, 1962, a diminutive, 17-year-old singer named Eva Narcissus Boyd scored her first and only #1 pop hit with “The Loco-Motion.” Her success certainly came from her abundant talent and a great capacity for hard work, but it was helped along by being in the right place at the right time. Eva Boyd […]

1:54m read read

Hurricane David is born

On August 25, 1979, the storm that will become Hurricane David forms near Cape Verde off the African coast in the eastern Atlantic Ocean. It would go on to devastate the island of Dominica, and then the Dominican Republic, killing at least 2,000 people. On August 27, two days after forming, the storm reached hurricane […]

1:52m read read

U.S. Marines deployed to Lebanon

During the Lebanese Civil War, a multinational force including 800 U.S. Marines lands in Beirut to oversee the Palestinian withdrawal from Lebanon. It was the beginning of a problem-plagued mission that would stretch into 17 months and leave 262 U.S. servicemen dead. In 1975, a bloody civil war erupted in Lebanon, with Palestinian and leftist […]

1:06m read read

Truman Capote, author of “In Cold Blood,” dies

Truman Capote, the author of the pioneering true-crime novel In Cold Blood, dies at age 59 in Los Angeles. In Cold Blood told the story of the 1959 murder of the Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas. Richard Hickock and Perry Smith, two parolees from the Kansas State Penitentiary, decided to rob Herbert Clutter, a successful farmer, […]

1:48m read read

Samantha Smith dies in plane crash

Samantha Smith, the 13-year-old “ambassador” to the Soviet Union, dies in a plane crash. Smith was best known for writing to Soviet leader Yuri Andropov in 1982 and visiting the Soviet Union as Andropov’s guest in 1983. In late 1982, Smith, a fifth-grader at Manchester Elementary School in Manchester, Maine, wrote a plaintive letter to […]

1:58m read read

Ted Kennedy, “liberal lion of the Senate,” dies at 77

On August 25, 2009, Edward “Ted” Kennedy, the youngest brother of President John F. Kennedy and a U.S. senator from Massachusetts from 1962 to 2009, dies of brain cancer at age 77 at his home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. Kennedy, one of the longest-serving senators in American history, was a leader of the Democratic Party […]

3:50m read read

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