President Woodrow Wilson establishes the National Park Service

Today is Sunday, August 25th, the 238th day of the year 2024. There are 128 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On August 25, 1916, Woodrow Wilson signed the National Park Service Organic Act, establishing the National Park Service as an agency of the U.S. Department of the Interior to preserve the nation’s natural and historic wonders and “leave them undisturbed for future generations to enjoy.”

Also on this date:

In 1875, Matthew Webb became the first person to swim across the English Channel, completing the journey from Dover (England) to Calais (ka-LAY’) (France) in less than 22 hours.

In 1928, an expedition led by Richard E. Byrd set sail from Hoboken, New Jersey, and headed for Antarctica.

In 1944, Paris was liberated by the Allies after four years of Nazi occupation during World War II.

1948 – In the first televised hearing of the House Un-American Activities Committee, Alger Hiss denied Whittaker Chambers’ allegations that Hiss was a communist involved in espionage. (Hiss was later charged with perjury and sentenced to five years in prison, but maintained his innocence until his death in 1996.)

In 1981, the US space probe Voyager 2 approached Saturn’s cloud cover to within 63,000 miles and sent images and data about the ringed planet to Earth.

In 2001, R&B singer Aaliyah (ah-LEE’-yah) was killed along with eight others in a plane crash in the Bahamas; she was 22.

In 2012, 82-year-old Neil Armstrong died in Cincinnati, Ohio. He was commander of the historic Apollo 11 moon landing and was the first person to set foot on the moon in July 1969.

In 2017, Hurricane Harvey, the most powerful hurricane to hit the United States in more than a decade, made landfall near Corpus Christi, Texas, with sustained winds of 130 mph (210 km/h). The storm brought five days of rain totaling nearly 52 inches (132 cm), the heaviest tropical downpour ever recorded in the Americas.

In 2020, two people were shot and a third wounded when 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse opened fire with an AR-15 rifle during a third night of protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin, following the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man. (Rittenhouse, who was taken into custody the next day in Illinois, said he was defending himself after the three men attacked him as he tried to protect stores from protesters; he was acquitted of all charges, including murder.)

In 2022, regulators approved California’s plans to require all new cars, trucks and SUVs to run on electricity or hydrogen by 2035.

Today’s birthdays:

• Actor Tom Skerritt is 91.
• Former US Poet Laureate Charles Wright is 89.
• The author Frederick Forsyth is 86.
• Film director John Badham is 85.
• Rollie Fingers, a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame, is 78.
• Rock musician Gene Simmons (Kiss) is 75.
• Rock singer Rob Halford (Judas Priest) is 73.
• The musician Elvis Costello is 70.
• Film director Tim Burton is 66.
• Country musician Billy Ray Cyrus is 63.
• Actor Blair Underwood is 60.
• Cornelius Bennett, a member of the NFL Hall of Fame, is 59.
• DJ Terminator X (Public Enemy) is 57.
• Singer-songwriter Jeff Tweedy (Wilco) is 57.
• TV chef Rachael Ray is 56.
• Country singer Jo Dee Messina is 54.
• Model Claudia Schiffer is 54.
• Marvin Harrison, a member of the NFL Hall of Fame, is 52.
• Actor Alexander Skarsgard is 48.
• Actor Kel Mitchell is 46.
• Actress Rachel Bilson is 43.
• Actor Blake Lively is 37.
• Actress China Anne McClain is 26.