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Made for the 250thOn this day › August 25
What happened on August 25 in American history
August 25 is the 237th day of the year (the 238th in leap years). Patriot Compass has published 11 stories from August 25 spanning 1814 to 2012. Among them: in 1814, a second day of fire in Washington: the Library of Congress and Treasury burn; and in 1835, the Sun reveals life on the Moon: bison, unicorns, and bat-winged men living on the Moon.
1814
A second day of fire in Washington: the Library of Congress and Treasury burn
A well-timed thunderstorm, not American resistance, would end the occupation by morning.
1835Member story · 1776 Club
The Sun reveals life on the Moon: bison, unicorns, and bat-winged men living on the Moon
A penny newspaper credits the discovery to a real astronomer who has never heard of it.
1916Member story · 1776 Club
Wilson creates a single agency to run the national parks
The Organic Act puts Yellowstone, Yosemite, and dozens of other holdings under one roof for the first time.
1942Member story · 1776 Club
Planes from Henderson Field knock Tanaka cold and sink his transport off Guadalcanal
A rescuing destroyer catches five bombs from B-17s and sinks while pulling survivors off the transport she came to save.
1944
Paris is free; von Choltitz signs away the city he was ordered to burn
Hours later de Gaulle stands at the Hôtel de Ville and tells Paris it liberated itself.
1945Member story · 1776 Club
Ten days after Japan surrenders, Communist troops kill an American intelligence officer in Shandong
Bound, shot, and bayonetted, Captain John Birch becomes a name the American right will invoke for decades.
1948Member story · 1776 Club
Chambers and Hiss meet face to face, and cameras are rolling
The House committee's first televised hearing puts an accused spy and his accuser in the same Washington room.
1950Member story · 1776 Club
Truman hands the railroads to the Army to stop a strike from stalling the Korean War buildup
Secretary of the Army Frank Pace gets the order to take control of the lines before a walkout can start.
1989Member story · 1776 Club
Voyager 2 skims 3,080 miles over Neptune's north pole and confirms the planet's rings
Five hours later the probe swings past Triton, closing out a twelve-year tour of the outer planets.
2003Member story · 1776 Club
NASA's infrared eye leaves Earth trailing behind it, not orbiting it
A Delta II rocket sends Spitzer into a heliocentric orbit designed to drift slowly away from home.
2012
Voyager 1 leaves the Sun's bubble; no craft has gone farther
Thirty-five years after launch, its instruments detect the plasma signature of true interstellar space.
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