Today in History.....August 25

On this day in …

1875, Captain Matthew Webb became the first person to swim across the English Channel, getting 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

1944, during World War II, Paris was liberated by Allied forces after four years of Nazi, ym"sh, occupation

1950, President Truman ordered the Army to seize control of the nation's railroads to avert a strike

1954, the United States Postal Service began issuing a Classic Cars booklet of stamps. The special edition stamps featured five different designs: a 1928 Locomobile, a 1929 Pierce-Arrow, a 1931 Cord, a 1932 Packard, and a 1935 Dusenberg

1967, Defense Secretary McNamara concedes that the U.S. bombing campaign has had little effect on the North's "war-making capability." 1981, the U.S. spacecraft Voyager 2 came within 63,000 miles of Saturn's cloud cover, sending back pictures of and data about the ringed planet

1985, Samantha Smith, the schoolgirl whose letter to Yuri V. Andropov resulted in her famous peace tour of the Soviet Union, died with her father in an airliner crash in Maine

2001, Mette-Marit Tjessem Hoiby, a single mother and former waitress, married Norway's Crown Prince Haakon in Oslo

2005, Hurricane Katrina hit Florida with 80 mph winds and headed into the Gulf of Mexico. The base closing commission voted to shut down the Army's historic Walter Reed hospital as it endorsed much of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's broader plan to streamline support services across the Army, Navy and Air Force.