August 25, accused communist denies espionage charges

Today is Monday, Aug. 25, the 237th day of 2025. There are 128 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On August 25, 1948, in the House Un-American Activities Committee’s first televised congressional hearing, Alger Hiss denied charges by Whittaker Chambers that Hiss was a communist involved in espionage. (Hiss was later charged with perjury and sentenced to five years in prison, but maintained his innocence until his death in 1996.)

Also on this date:

In 1875, Matthew Webb became the first person to swim across the English Channel, crossing from Dover, England, to Calais (ka-LAY’), France, in under 22 hours.

In 1916, Woodrow Wilson signed the National Park Service Organic Act, establishing the National Park Service as an agency of the U.S. Department of the Interior to maintain the country’s natural and historic wonders and “leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.”

In 1928, an expedition led by Richard E. Byrd set sail from Hoboken, New Jersey, on its journey to Antarctica.

In 1944, Paris was liberated by Allied forces after four years of Nazi occupation during World War II.

In 1981, the U.S. spacecraft Voyager 2 came within 63,000 miles of Saturn’s cloud cover, sending back pictures of and data about the ringed planet.

In 2001, R&B singer Aaliyah (ah-LEE’-yah) was killed with eight others in a plane crash in the Bahamas; she was 22.

In 2012, Neil Armstrong, 82, who commanded the historic Apollo 11 lunar landing and was the first man to set foot on the moon in July 1969, died in Cincinnati, Ohio.

In 2017, Hurricane Harvey, the fiercest hurricane to hit the U.S. in more than a decade, made landfall near Corpus Christi, Texas, with 130 mph sustained winds; the storm would deliver five days of rain totaling close to 52 inches, the heaviest tropical downpour that had ever been recorded in the continental U.S.

In 2020, two people were shot to death and a third was wounded as 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse opened fire with an AR-15-style rifle during a third night of protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin, over the police shooting of a Black man, Jacob Blake. (Rittenhouse, who was taken into custody in Illinois the next day, said he was defending himself after the three men attacked him as he tried to protect businesses from protesters; he was acquitted on all charges, including homicide.)

In 2022, regulators approved California’s plans to require all new cars, trucks and SUVs to run on electricity or hydrogen by 2035. (President Donald Trump signed a resolution in June 2025 blocking California’s plan, prompting a court challenge by the state).