Today’s Highlight in History:
On Aug. 25, 2018, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who had spent years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam before a 35-year political career that took him to the Republican presidential nomination, died at the age of 81 after battling brain cancer for more than a year.
On this date:
In 1718, hundreds of French colonists arrived in Louisiana, with some settling in present-day New Orleans.
In 1875, Capt. Matthew Webb became the first person to swim across the English Channel, getting from Dover, England, to Calais (ka-LAY’), France, in 22 hours.
In 1928, an expedition led by Richard E. Byrd set sail from Hoboken, N.J., on its journey to Antarctica.
In 1944, during World War II, Paris was liberated by Allied forces after four years of Nazi occupation.
In 1958, the game show “Concentration” premiered on NBC-TV.
In 1980, the Broadway musical “42nd Street” opened. (Producer David Merrick stunned the cast and audience during the curtain call by announcing that the show’s director, Gower Champion, had died earlier that day.)
In 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.
In 1985, Samantha Smith, 13, 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 Auburn, Maine, that also killed four other passengers and two crew members.
In 2001, R&B singer Aaliyah (ah-LEE’-yah) was killed with eight others in a plane crash in the Bahamas; she was 22.
In 2009, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, the liberal lion of the U.S. Senate, died at age 77 in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, after a battle with a brain tumor.
In 2014, a funeral was held in St. Louis for Michael Brown, the Black 18-year-old who was shot to death by a police officer in suburban Ferguson.
In 2020, two people were shot to death and a third was wounded as 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse opened fire with an AR-15-style rifle during a third night of protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin, over the police shooting of a Black man, Jacob Blake. (Rittenhouse, who was taken into custody in Illinois the next day, said he was defending himself after the three men attacked him as he tried to protect businesses from protesters; he was acquitted on all charges, including homicide.)
Aug. 25: Actor Tom Skerritt is 90. Singer Walter Williams of The O’Jays is 80. Actor Anthony Heald (“Boston Public”) is 79. Singer Henry Paul of BlackHawk (and Outlaws) is 74. Actor John Savage is 74. Bassist Gene Simmons of Kiss is 74. Singer Rob Halford of Judas Priest is 72. Keyboardist Geoff Downes of Asia is 71. Musician Elvis Costello is 69. Director Tim Burton is 65. Actor Christian LeBlanc (“The Young and the Restless”) is 65. Actor Ashley Crow (“Heroes”) is 63. Country singer-actor Billy Ray Cyrus is 62. Actor Ally Walker (“Profiler”) is 62. Actor Joanne Whalley is 62. Guitarist Vivian Campbell of Def Leppard is 61. Actor Blair Underwood is 59. Actor Robert Maschio (“Scrubs”) is 57. DJ Terminator X of Public Enemy is 57. Singer Jeff Tweedy of Wilco is 56. Actor David Alan Basche (“The Exes”) is 55. TV chef Rachael Ray is 55. Actor Cameron Mathison (“All My Children”) is 54. Country singer Jo Dee Messina is 53. Model Claudia Schiffer is 53. Actor Nathan Page (“Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries”) is 52. Actor Eric Millegan (“Bones”) is 49. Actor Alexander Skarsgard (“Big Little Lies,” ″True Blood”) is 47. Actor Jonathan Togo (“CSI: Miami”) is 46. Actor Kel Mitchell (“Kenan and Kel”) is 45. Actor Rachel Bilson (“Hart of Dixie,” “The O.C.”) is 42. Actor Blake Lively is 36.