August 26, AIDS patient begins school via phone hook-up

Today is Tuesday, Aug. 26, the 238th day of 2025. There are 127 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Aug. 26, 1985, 13-year-old AIDS patient Ryan White began “attending” classes at Western Middle School in Kokomo, Indiana via a telephone hook-up at his home, as school officials had barred White from attending classes in person due to his illness.

Also on this date:

In 1939, the first televised major league baseball games were broadcast on experimental station W2XBS: a doubleheader between the Cincinnati Reds and the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field. The Reds won the first game, 5-2, and the Dodgers the second, 6-1.

In 1944, French Gen. Charles de Gaulle braved the threat of German snipers as he led a victory march in Paris, which had just been liberated by the Allies from Nazi occupation.

In 1958, Alaskans went to the polls to overwhelmingly vote in favor of statehood.

In 1968, the Democratic National Convention opened in Chicago; the four-day event that resulted in the nomination of Hubert H. Humphrey for president was marked by a bloody police crackdown on antiwar protesters in the streets.

In 1972, the summer Olympics opened in Munich, West Germany.

In 1978, Cardinal Albino Luciani (al-BEE’-noh loo-CHYAH’-nee) of Venice was elected pope following the death of Paul VI. The new pontiff, who took the name Pope John Paul I, died just over a month later.

In 1980, the FBI inadvertently detonated a bomb planted at Harvey’s Resort Hotel in Stateline, Nevada, while attempting to disarm it. (The hotel had been evacuated and no injuries were reported but the blast caused significant damage.)

In 2009, kidnapping victim Jaycee Dugard was discovered alive in California after being missing for more than 18 years.

In 2022, an affidavit released by the FBI showed that 14 of the 15 boxes recovered from former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate contained classified documents, many of them top secret, mixed in with miscellaneous newspapers, magazines and personal correspondence.