August 25
Paris liberated
Charles de Gaulle, 1967.
1944: When Allied forces landed in Normandy on June 6, 1944, during World War II, the armed French underground units had grown large enough to play an important role in the battles that followed—harassing German forces and sabotaging railways and bridges. As the Germans gradually fell back, local Resistance organizations took over town halls and prefectures from Vichy incumbents. Charles de Gaulle's provisional government immediately sent its own delegates into the liberated areas to ensure an orderly transfer of power. On August 19 Resistance forces in Paris launched an insurrection against the German occupiers, and on this day Free French units under General Jacques-Philippe Leclerc entered the city. De Gaulle himself arrived later in the day, and on the next day he headed a triumphal parade down the Champs-Élysées.
1945: John Birch, an American Baptist missionary and U.S. Army intelligence officer, was killed by Chinese communists, which later inspired the foundation of the John Birch Society—a private organization that considered Birch to be the first hero of the Cold War.
1900: German Classical scholar, philosopher, and critic of culture Friedrich Nietzsche died at age 55.
1530: Ivan IV (the Terrible), grand prince of Moscow and first tsar of Russia, was born.
325: The Council of Nicaea—the first ecumenical council of the Christian church—brought to an end the controversy of Arianism, concluding that God the Father was of equal status with God the Son. |
