August 25 ...

In 1718 the city of New Orleans was founded. In 1814 during the War of 1812, British forces burned many public buildings in Washington, DC, including the White House, the Senate and House of Representatives, the Library of Congress, and the Treasury building. In 1825 Uruguay declares its independence from Brazil. In 1830 Belgium revolts from the Netherlands. In 1916 the National Park Service was established within the Department of the Interior. In 1921 the US signed a peace treaty with Germany. In 1943 US forces overran New Georgia in the Solomon Islands during World War II. In 1944 Paris was liberated by Allied forces after four years of Nazi occupation; also on this day Romania declared war on Germany. In 1950 President Truman ordered the Army to seize control of the nation's railroads to avert a strike. In 1981 Voyager 2 sent back pictures and data about Saturn. The craft came within 63,000 miles of the planet. In 1985 Samantha Smith, 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 Maine. In 1989 Voyager 2 spacecraft flies by Neptune, the last major planet it could visit before leaving the Solar System.In 1991 Byelorussia declared independence from the Soviet Union. In 1998 retired Supreme Court Justice Lewis F. Powell died in Richmond, VA at age 90. In 2005 Hurricane Katrina made her first landfall in the US, crossing the Miami-Dade and Broward county line as a Category 1 hurricane.