August 25 is the 237th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (238th in leap years), with 129 days remaining.

Events

1500-1899

• 1537 - The Honourable Artillery Company, the oldest surviving regiment in the British Army, and the second most senior, was formed.
• 1580 - Battle of Alcantara. Spain defeats Portugal.
• 1609 - Galileo Galilei demonstrates his first telescope to Venetian lawmakers.
• 1718 - New Orleans, Louisiana is founded.
• 1825 - Uruguay declares its independence from Brazil.
• 1830 - Belgium revolts from the Netherlands
• 1835 - The New York Sun perpetrates The Great Moon Hoax.
• 1875 - Matthew Webb becomes the first person to swim the English Channel.

1900-1999

• 1910 - Yellow Cab is founded.
• 1912 - Kuomintang, the Chinese nationalist party is founded.
• 1916 - United States National Park Service is created.
• 1920 - Polish-Soviet War: Battle of Warsaw, started on August 13, now ends. The Red Army is defeated.
• 1942 - Battle of Milne Bay, Papua New Guinea
• 1944 - World War II: Paris is liberated by the Allies.
• 1946 - Ben Hogan wins PGA Championship.
• 1950 - President Harry Truman ordered the US Army to seize control of the nation's railroads to avert a strike.
• 1960 - Games of the XVII Olympiad open in Rome.
• 1975 - Bruce Springsteen releases Born to Run, the classic album that would launch him to superstardom.
• 1980 - Microsoft announces their version of UNIX, Xenix.
• 1980 - The Broadway musical 42nd Street opened; the show's director, Gower Champion, died earlier that day.
• 1989 - Tadeusz Mazowiecki chosen as the first non-communist Prime Minister in Central and Eastern Europe.
• 1989 - Voyager 2 spacecraft flies by Neptune.
• 1991 - Linus Torvalds first says in a post to the comp.os.minix newsgroup that he is working on a new free computer operating system.

2000-2099

• 2003 - the Tli Cho land claims agreement is signed between the Dogrib First Nations and the Canadian federal government in Rae-Edzo, Northwest Territories.
• 2003 - 52 killed in two Islamic terrorist bomb blasts in Mumbai, India.

Births

1500-1899

• 1530 - Ivan IV of Russia ("Ivan the Terrible") (d. 1584)
• 1635 - Sir Henry Morgan, privateer (d. 1688)
• 1724 - George Stubbs, British painter (d. 1806)
• 1767 - French revolutionary and writer (d. 1794)
• 1796 - James Lick, California land baron (d. 1876)
• 1819 - Allan Pinkerton, founder of the Pinkerton Agency (d. 1884)
• 1836 - Bret Harte, author (d. 1902)
• 1841 - Emil Kocher, medical researcher (d. 1917)
• 1845 - King Ludwig II of Bavaria (d. 1886)
• 1850 - Charles Richet, scientist
• 1882 - Sean O'Kelly, President of Ireland 1945-59 (d. 1966)

1900-1999

• 1900 - Sir Hans Adolf Krebs, scientist
• 1902 - Stefan Wolpe, composer (d. 1972)
• 1909 - Ruby Keeler, singer, actress (d. 1993)
• 1909 - Michael Rennie, actor (d. 1971)
• 1912 - Erich Honecker, head of state of East Germany (d. 1994)
• 1913 - Walt Kelly, cartoonist (d. 1973)
• 1916 - Van Johnson, actor
• 1917 - Mel Ferrer, actor
• 1918 - Leonard Bernstein, conductor, composer (d. 1990)
• 1918 - Richard Greene, actor
• 1919 - George Wallace, Governor of Alabama (d. 1998)
• 1921 - Monty Hall, game show host
• 1927 - Althea Gibson, tennis champion (d. 2003)
• 1929 - Gordon Sherwood, composer
• 1930 - Sir Sean Connery, actor
• 1933 - Regis Philbin, television host
• 1933 - Wayne Shorter, jazz musician
• 1933 - Tom Skerritt, actor
• 1935 - Charles Wright, American poet
• 1938 - David Canary, actor
• 1938 - Frederick Forsyth, author
• 1939 - John Badham, film director
• 1940 - José Van Dam, baritone singer
• 1941 - Marshall Brickman, screenwriter
• 1944 - Anthony Heald, actor
• 1946 - Rollie Fingers, baseball pitcher
• 1947 - Anne Archer, actress
• 1949 - Martin Amis, novelist
• 1949 - John Savage, actor
• 1949 - Gene Simmons, bassist
• 1951 - Robert Joseph Glass, artist
• 1952 - Peter Wolf, singer, composer
• 1954 - Elvis Costello, songwriter, musician
• 1958 - Tim Burton, film director, producer, screenwriter
• 1961 - Billy Ray Cyrus, singer
• 1962 - Viv Campbell, Def Leppard guitarist
• 1964 - Maxim Kontsevich, Russian mathematician
• 1964 - Blair Underwood, actor
• 1968 - Rafet El Roman, singer, composer
• 1968 - Rachael Ray, cook, television host
• 1970 - Claudia Schiffer, supermodel
• 1972 - Marvin Harrison, American football player

Deaths

1000-1899

• 1192 - Hugh III, Duke of Burgundy, in Acre (b. 1142)
• 1270 - Louis IX of France, (Saint Louis) on crusade in Tunisia.
• 1774 - Niccolò Jommelli, composer
• 1822 - William Herschel, astronomer (b. 1738)
• 1867 - Michael Faraday, scientist

1900-1999

• 1900 - Friedrich Nietzsche - philosopher
• 1900 - Kuroda Kiyotaka, Japanese politician and prime minister (b. 1840)
• 1904 - Henri Fantin-Latour, painter
• 1908 - Henri Becquerel, French physicist
• 1925 - Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, Austro-Hungarian Chief of Staff, WWI
• 1942 - George Edward Alexander Windsor, Duke of Kent
• 1945 - John Birch, soldier, missionary, first casualty of the Cold War
• 1967 - Stanley Bruce, eighth Prime Minister of Australia
• 1967 - Paul Muni, Academy Award winning actor
• 1967 - George Lincoln Rockwell, American Nazi Party leader
• 1971 - Ted Lewis, jazz musician, entertainer (b. 1890)
• 1979 - Stan Kenton, jazz musician, big band leader
• 1979 - Ray Eberle, jazz musician, big band leader
• 1980 - Gower Champion, dancer, actor, choreographer
• 1984 - Truman Capote, author
• 1984 - Waite Hoyt, Baseball Hall of Famer (b. 1899)
• 1985 - Samantha Smith, U.S. social activist, actress
• 1990 - Morley Callaghan, Canadian writer

2000-2099

• 2000 - Carl Barks, illustrator of Donald Duck
• 2001 - Aaliyah, singer (plane crash)
• 2002 - Dorothy Hewett, Australian poet, playwright and novelist

Holidays and observances

• Uruguay - National Day.
• Roman Empire - Opiconsivia held in honor of Ops.
• Philippines - National Heroes' Day.
• Australia - Claytonymas. Held in honour of Australian war heroes.

August 24 - August 26 - July 25 - September 25 -- listing of all days