This Day in History

[Gravdigr]

August 25

1537 – The Honourable Artillery Company, the oldest surviving regiment in the British Army, and the second most senior, is formed.

1543 – The first Europeans, and the first firearms, arrive in Japan.

1609 – Galileo Galilei demonstrates his first telescope to Venetian lawmakers.

1894 – Kitasato Shibasaburō discovers the infectious agent of the bubonic plague and publishes his findings in The Lancet.

1916 – The United States National Park Service is created.

1944 – World War II: Paris is liberated by the Allies.

1981 – Voyager 2 spacecraft makes its closest approach to Saturn.

1989 – Voyager 2 spacecraft makes its closest approach to Neptune, the second to last planet in the Solar System at the time.

1991 – Linus Torvalds announces the first version of what will become Linux.

1994 - Jimmy Buffett crashed his Grumman G-44 Widgeon seaplane on take-off in Nantucket, Massachusetts. Buffett swam away from the wreckage.

2012 – Voyager 1 spacecraft enters interstellar space, becoming the first man-made object to do so.

Births

1530 – Ivan the Terrible; 1819 – Allan Pinkerton (Pinkerton National Detective Agency); 1836 – Bret Harte; 1909 – Ruby Keeler, Michael Rennie ('Klaatu' in The Day The Earth Stood Still); 1916 – Van Johnson; 1917 – Mel Ferrer; 1918 – Leonard Bernstein♪ ♫; 1919 – George Wallace; 1921 – Monty Hall; 1927 – Althea Gibson; 1930 – Sean Connery (woman slapper); 1931 – Regis Philbin; 1933 – Patrick F. McManus; 1933 – Tom Skerritt; 1938 – David Canary (All My Children, Bonanza); 1937 – Virginia Wolff; 1939 – John Badham; 1943 – Harry Manfredini♪ ♫; 1944 – Anthony Heald (the old friend Hannibal Lecter was going to have for dinner at the end of The Silence of the Lambs); 1949 – John Savage (The Deer Hunter), Gene Simmons(KISS); 1950 – Willy DeVille♪ ♫(Mink DeVille); 1951 – Rob Halford♪ ♫(Judas Priest, Fight); 1954 – Elvis Costello♪ ♫; 1958 – Tim Burton; 1961 – Billy Ray Cyrus♪ ♫; 1962 – Vivian Campbell; 1964 – Blair Underwood; 1968 – Rachael Ray; 1970 – Jo Dee Messina♪ ♫; 1976 – Alexander Skarsgård ('Tarzan' in The Legend of Tarzan, son of actor Stellen Skarsgård); 1987 – Blake Lively (Gossip Girl)

Deaths

79 – Pliny the Elder; 1819 – James Watt; 1822 – William Herschel; 1867 – Michael Faraday; 1900 – Friedrich Nietzsche; 1908 – Henri Becquerel; 1945 – John Birch (John Birch Society); 1956 – Alfred Kinsey; 1967 – Paul Muni; 1984 – Truman Capote; 1988 – Art Rooney (founded the Pittsburgh Steelers); 2000 – Frederick C. Bock (namesake of Bockscar, the plane that dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan), Allen Woody(Allman Bros); 2001 – Aaliyah♪ ♫; 2009 – Ted Kennedy; 2012 – Neil Armstrong