JULY 25TH

Today is Friday, July 25, the 207th day of 2008. There are 159 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:

• On July 25, 1956, the Italian liner Andrea Doria collided with the Swedish passenger ship Stockholm off the New England coast late at night and began sinking; at least 51 people were killed. (The Andrea Doria sank the following day, some 11 hours after the crash.)

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 1868, Congress passed an act creating the Wyoming Territory.
• In 1943, Benito Mussolini was dismissed as premier of Italy by 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 1957, Tunisia became a republic.
• In 1963, the United States, the Soviet Union and Britain initialed a treaty in Moscow prohibiting the testing of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere, in space or underwater.
• In 1978, Louise Joy Brown, the first "test tube baby," was born in Oldham, England; she'd been conceived through the technique of in-vitro fertilization.
• 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 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.

Ten years ago:

• Two government officials revealed that special prosecutor Kenneth Starr had subpoenaed President Clinton to testify before a federal grand jury about the Monica Lewinsky case.
• The U.S. Capitol was reopened, a day after a gunman killed two police officers.

Five years ago:

• President Bush ordered U.S. troops into position off the coast of Liberia to support the arrival of a West African peacekeeping force, as renewed violence in the capital brought despairing pleas for American help.
• President Bush received Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas at the White House.
• Movie director John Schlesinger died in Palm Springs, Calif., at age 77.

One year ago:

• A presidential commission urged broad changes to veterans' care that would boost benefits for family members helping the wounded, establish an easy-to-use Web site for medical records and overhaul the way disability pay was awarded.
• The bullet-riddled body of one of 23 South Koreans held hostage in Afghanistan by Taliban kidnappers was found; eight other captives were released.
• Congress Party stalwart Pratibha Patil was sworn in as India's first female president.

Today's Birthdays:

• Actress Estelle Getty is would have been 85. She passed on the 22nd.
  
• Actress Barbara Harris is 73.
• Rock musician Verdine White (Earth, Wind & Fire) is 57.
• Singer-musician Jem Finer (The Pogues) is 53.
• Model-actress Iman is 53.
• Cartoonist Ray Billingsley ("Curtis") is 51.
• Rock musician Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth) is 50.
• Actress-singer Bobbie Eakes is 47.
• Actress Katherine Kelly Lang (TV: "The Bold and the Beautiful") is 47.
• Actress Illeana Douglas is 43.
• Country singer Marty Brown is 43.
• Actor Matt LeBlanc is 41.
• Actor D.B. Woodside is 39.
• Actress Miriam Shor is 37.
• Actor James Lafferty (TV: "One Tree Hill") is 23.

Thought for Today:

"The truth is all things seen under the form of eternity."
George Santayana, Spanish-American philosopher (1863-1952).

"Let's all be careful out there!"