It happened one 25 August

1830 : Beginning of the Belgian Revolution


On August 25, 1830, a riot broke out against the Dutch power following the performance of a patriotic opera in a theater in Brussels. This is the beginning of the revolt in the southern provinces of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands that will culminate in the creation of a new independent state of Belgium.

1944 : Paris liberated


On 25 August 1944, most of the city of Paris is liberated from German occupation by the second DB (Armoured Division) of Leclerc and 4th U.S. Infantry Division. Paris was to be bypassed by the allies to accelerate the advance towards Germany but due to Leclerc's insubordination, Eisenhower gave in and allowed the sending of French and American troops to help the the FFI (French Forces of Interior) insurgents to liberate the city.
The French capital which was to be destroyed under Hitler's orders was finally spared. The military governor of the city, Dietrich von Choltitz, surrendered to the French forces in the afternoon.

1989 : Voyager 2 reached Neptune


On August 25, 1989, the NASA spacecraft Voyager 2 reached the vicinity of the planet Neptune, the planet farthest from the sun, more than 3 billion miles from Earth. Voyager 2 sent its first images of Neptune and then of its its moon Triton.

1991 : First version of Linux


On August 25, 1991, Linus Torvalds, a Finnish student, announced its first release of a new free operating system based on UNIX system, on a Usenet newsgroup: Linux. The first version was launched in February 1992, and released under GNU (GNU General Public License). Today, the vast majority of web servers worldwide run on Linux kernel under Apache.

Latest news : 25 August

National Day in Uruguay
August 25 is National Day of Uruguay, which commemorates its independence from Brazil, declared on August 25, 1825.

Quote of the day : 25 August

Linus Torvalds
Software is like sex: it's better when it's free.

Birthdays : 25 August

Louis Antoine de Saint-Just, French revolutionary (1767)
Hans Adolf Krebs, German biochemist, Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology (1900)
Michael Rennie, English actor (1909)
Võ Nguyên Giáp, Vietnamese general and politician (1911)
Erich Honecker, East-German politician (1912)
Van Johnson, American actor (1916)
Mel Ferrer, American actor (1917)
Richard Greene, English actor (1918)
Leonard Bernstein, American conductor and composer (1918)
Herbert Kroemer, German-American physicist, Nobel Prize for Physics (1928)
Sean Connery, Scottish actor (1930)
Tom Skerritt, American actor (1933)
Frederick Forsyth, English writer (1938)
John Badham, American director (1939)
José van Dam, Belgian bass-baritone (1940)
Anne Archer, American actress (1947)
Gene Simmons, Israeli-American musician (Kiss) (1949)
John Savage , American actor (1950)
Elvis Costello, English musicien (1954)
Tim Burton, American director (1958)
Billy Ray Cyrus, American country music singer (1961)
Vivian Campbell, Irish musician (Def Leppard) (1962)
Maxim Kontsevich, Russian mathematician (1964)
Blair Underwood, American actor (1964)
Joanne Whalley, English actress (1964)
Tom Hollander, English actor (1967)
Claudia Schiffer, German supermodel (1970)
Eric Millegan, American actor (1974)
Petria Thomas, Australian swimmer (1975)
Eve Angeli, French singer (1980)
Amy Macdonald, Scottish singer (1987)
Blake Lively, American actress (1987)
Alexandra Burke, English singer (1988)

They left us one 25 August

Genghis Khan, Mongol emperor (1227)
Henry Morgan, Welsh privateer (1688)
Niccolo Jommelli, Italian composer (1774)
David Hume, Scottish philosopher (1776)
James Watt, Scottish inventor (1819)
James Watt, Scottish inventor (1819)
Michael Faraday, English chemist and physicist (1867)
Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher (1900)
Henri Becquerel, French physicist, Nobel Laureate (1908)
Paul Muni, Polish actor (1967)
Stanley Bruce, Prime Minister of Australia (1923-1929) (1967)
Eyvind Johnson, Swedish writer, Nobel Prize in Literature (1976)
Truman Capote, American writer (1984)
Françoise Dolto, French psychoanalyst (1988)
Carl Barks, American cartoonist (2000)
Philippe Léotard, French actor (2001)
Aaliyah, American singer (2001)
Raymond Barre, French politician (2007)
Ted Kennedy, American politician (2009)
Neil Armstrong, American astronaut (2012)
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