Daily List

Today in History, August 25th

On August 25, 1944, French and U.S. troops liberated Paris. Plus the National Park Service's creation and Africa's polio-free milestone.

By Today in History Updated November 10, 2026 3 min read Sources checked

Published August 25, 2026 · Last updated November 10, 2026

August 25 is best known for 1944, when French and American troops liberated Paris after more than four years of German occupation. The date also saw President Woodrow Wilson create the National Park Service in 1916 and Africa certified free of wild polio in 2020.

The big story: Paris is liberated (1944)

Allied planners first meant to go around Paris, not through it. Taking the city would cost time, fuel and food the armies needed for the chase toward Germany. Events forced their hand. By August 18, Parisian workers were on strike and Resistance fighters were attacking German troops. Charles de Gaulle pressed Dwight Eisenhower to act, and on August 22 Eisenhower approved the advance. General Jacques-Philippe Leclerc’s French 2nd Armored Division came in from one side, and the U.S. 4th Infantry Division came in from the other. Hitler had ordered that Paris be held at all costs or left in ruins. The German commander, General Dietrich von Choltitz, had explosives placed but never gave the order to use them. He was arrested on the afternoon of August 25 and signed the surrender soon after. De Gaulle reached the city that same afternoon. The next day he led a victory parade down the Champs-Élysées, and the capital that fell in June 1940 was French again.

More events on August 25

Year	What happened
1825	Uruguay declared its independence from the Empire of Brazil, which had annexed it. The date is still the country’s Independence Day.
1835	The New York Sun ran the first of its “Great Moon Hoax” articles, which claimed telescopes had spotted life on the Moon.
1875	Englishman Matthew Webb reached France after 21 hours and 45 minutes in the water, the first known person to swim the English Channel.
1914	Early in World War I, German troops began burning the Belgian town of Louvain, destroying its famous university library.
1916	President Woodrow Wilson signed the Organic Act, creating the National Park Service within the Department of the Interior.
1958	Momofuku Ando’s Chicken Ramen, the first instant noodles, went on sale in Japan. At first it cost far more than fresh noodles.
1982	About 800 U.S. Marines landed in Beirut as part of a multinational force overseeing the Palestinian withdrawal from Lebanon.
2012	Neil Armstrong, the first person to walk on the Moon, died in Cincinnati at age 82.
2020	The WHO African Region was certified free of wild poliovirus. It was the second virus wiped out on the continent, after smallpox.

Born on August 25

1918: Leonard Bernstein, conductor, composer and pianist, born in Lawrence, Massachusetts.
1927: Althea Gibson, tennis champion and the first African American to win a Grand Slam title, born in Silver, South Carolina.
1930: Sean Connery, Scottish actor who made James Bond famous on film, born in Edinburgh.