Today in History

Today is Sunday, July 25, the 206th day of 2021. There are 159 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:

On July 25, 2000, a New York-bound Air France Concorde crashed outside Paris shortly after takeoff, killing all 109 people on board and four people on the ground; it was the first-ever crash of the supersonic jet.

On this date:

In 1866, Ulysses S. Grant was named General of the Army of the United States, the first officer to hold the rank.

In 1898, the United States invaded Puerto Rico during the Spanish-American War.

In 1943, Benito Mussolini was dismissed as premier of Italy by King Victor Emmanuel III, and placed under arrest. (However, Mussolini was later rescued by the Nazis, and re-asserted his authority.)

In 1946, the United States detonated an atomic bomb near Bikini Atoll in the Pacific in the first underwater test of the device.

In 1952, Puerto Rico became a self-governing commonwealth of the United States.

In 1956, the Italian liner SS Andrea Doria collided with the Swedish passenger ship Stockholm off the New England coast late at night and began sinking; 51 people -- 46 from the Andrea Doria, five from the Stockholm -- were killed. (The Andrea Doria capsized and sank the following morning.)

In 1961, in a televised address on the Berlin Crisis, President John F. Kennedy announced a series of steps aimed at bolstering the military in the face of Soviet demands that Western powers withdraw from the German city's western sector.

In 1972, the notorious Tuskegee syphilis experiment came to light as The Associated Press reported that for the previous four decades, the U.S. Public Health Service, in conjunction with the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, had been allowing poor, rural Black male patients with syphilis to go without treatment, even allowing them to die, as a way of studying the disease.

In 1975, the musical "A Chorus Line" opened on Broadway at the Shubert Theatre, beginning a run of 6,137 performances.

In 1994, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Jordan's King Hussein signed a declaration at the White House ending their countries' 46-year-old formal state of war.

In 2010, the online whistleblower Wikileaks posted some 90,000 leaked U.S. military records that amounted to a blow-by-blow account of the Afghanistan war, including unreported incidents of Afghan civilian killings as well as covert operations against Taliban figures.

In 2019, President Donald Trump had a second phone call with the new Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, during which he solicited Zelenskyy's help in gathering potentially damaging information about former Vice President Joe Biden; that night, a staff member at the White House Office of Management and Budget signed a document that officially put military aid for Ukraine on hold.

Ten years ago: The NFL Players Association executive board and 32 team reps voted unanimously to approve the terms of a deal to end a 4 1/2-month lockout.

Five years ago: On the opening night of the Democratic national convention in Philadelphia, Bernie Sanders robustly embraced his former rival Hillary Clinton as a champion for the same economic causes that enlivened his supporters, signaling it was time for them to rally behind her in the campaign against Republican Donald Trump. The FBI said it was investigating how thousands of Democratic National Committee emails were hacked. (Wikileaks had posted emails suggesting the DNC had favored Clinton over Sanders during the primary season.)

One year ago: Federal agents fired tear gas to break up rowdy protests in Portland, Oregon, that continued into the early morning, demonstrations had been taking place in Portland every night for two months in the aftermath of the Minneapolis death of George Floyd. Seattle police declared a riot following large demonstrations in the city's Capitol Hill neighborhood, where authorities said rocks, bottles and fireworks were thrown at officers as they attempted to clear the area; the protest had begun as a peaceful show of solidarity with demonstrators in Portland. Authorities in Oakland, California, said a protest in support of racial justice and police reform turned violent when a small group of demonstrators set fire to a courthouse, vandalized a police station and shot fireworks at officers. Hurricane Hanna roared ashore in Texas, lashing the Gulf Coast with rain and a storm surge.

Today's Birthdays: Folk-pop singer-musician Bruce Woodley (The Seekers) is 79. Rock musician Jim McCarty (The Yardbirds) is 78. Rock musician Verdine White (Earth, Wind & Fire) is 70. Singer-musician Jem Finer (The Pogues) is 66. Model-actor Iman is 66. Cartoonist Ray Billingsley ("Curtis") is 64. Rock musician Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth) is 63. Celebrity chef/TV personality Geoffrey Zakarian is 62. Actor-singer Bobbie Eakes is 60. Actor Katherine Kelly Lang is 60. Actor Illeana Douglas is 56. Country singer Marty Brown is 56. Actor Matt LeBlanc is 54. Actor Wendy Raquel Robinson is 54. Rock musician Paavo Lotjonen (Apocalyptica) is 53. Actor D.B. Woodside is 52. Actor Miriam Shor is 50. Actor David Denman is 48. Actor Jay R. Ferguson is 47. Actor James Lafferty is 36. Actor Shantel VanSanten is 36. Actor Michael Welch is 34. Actor Linsey Godfrey is 33. Classical singer Faryl Smith is 26. Actor Mason Cook is 21. Actor Meg Donnelly (TV: "American Housewife") is 20. Actor Pierce Gagnon is 16.