Aug. 25 (UPI) — On this date in history:
In 1609, Galileo Galilei exhibited his first telescope in Venice.
1 of 6 | France’s Division Leclerc work to liberate the city of Paris from German occupation on August 25, 1944, during World War II. File Photo courtesy of the National Museum of the U.S. Navy/Wikimedia Commons
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. United Press reporter James McGlincy was the first foreign correspondent in the capital amid the fighting. He reported the Parisians welcomed the Allies with kisses: “Lord, how they kissed us!“
In 1967, a sniper assassinated American Nazi leader George Lincoln Rockwell in Arlington, Va.
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.
Photo courtesy RIA Novosti archive
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.
File Photo by CJ Gunther/UPI
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 2020, the Africa Regional Certification Commission declared Africa free of wild polio after four years without a case.
File Photo by Marshall Wolfe/EPA