August 25

79 – After 2 days, the eruption of Mount Vesuvius ends.

1609 – Galileo demonstrates his first telescope to Venetian lawmakers.

1814 – On the second day of their raid on Washington D.C.,  British troops torch the Library of Congress, United States Treasury, Department of War, and many other buildings.

1875 – Captain Matthew Webb becomes the first person to swim across the English Channel, traveling from Dover, England, to Calais, France

1894 – Kitasato Shibasaburō discovers the infectious bacteria of the bubonic plague – Yersinia pestis – and publishes his findings in British journal The Lancet.

1914 – Japan declares war on Austria-Hungary.

1916 – The United States National Park Service is created.

1942 – The Battle of the Eastern Solomons ends with U.S. aircraft from Guadalcanal sinking the Japanese destroyer Mutsuki, crippling and finally sinking the transport Kinryu Maru and damaging the cruiser Jintsu, causing the Japanese fleet to withdraw out of range at the northern Solomon islands.

1944 – Paris is liberated by the Allies.

1945 – In Xuzhou, China, Chinese Communist soldiers kill U.S. intelligence officer John Birch

1948 – The House Un-American Activities Committee holds the first televised congressional hearings with Whittaker Chambers testifying against suspected spy Alger Hiss.

1950 – To avert a threatened strike during the Korean War, President Truman orders Secretary of the Army Frank Pace to seize control of the nation’s railroads.

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

1989 – The Voyager 2 spacecraft makes its closest approach to Neptune

1991 – Belarus declares its independence from the Soviet Union.

2001 – American singer Aaliyah and several members of her record company are killed as their overloaded aircraft, a Cessna 402, crashes shortly after takeoff from Marsh Harbour Airport, Bahamas.

2005 – Hurricane Katrina makes landfall in Florida as a Category 1 hurricane, before continuing on towards Louisiana, strengthening to  Category 5.

2012 – Voyager 1 becomes the first spacecraft to enter interstellar space.
Astronaut Neil Armstrong dies at age 82 in Cincinnati, following surgery

2017 – Hurricane Harvey makes landfall in Texas as a Category 4 hurricane, killing 106 people and causing $125 billion in damage.