1875, Captain Matthew Webb becomes the first person to swim the English Channel, making the journey from Britain to France in 22 hours.

1985, 13-year-old Samantha Smith and her father are killed in a plane crash in Maine. 2 years earlier, the girl’s letter to the Kremlin led to her famous peace tour  of the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

“ The Soviet people do not want war. They are all like us. And they want no harm to the world like we do.”

1956, Alfred Kinsey, pioneering researcher of human sexual behavior, dies in Bloomington Indiana. He was 62.

1930, Sean Connery, the original actor to play the Super Spy 007  on the silver screen, is born in Edinburgh, Scotland.

1918, composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein is born in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Among his well-known musicals: On the Town and West Side Story.

1954, Elvis Costello, the musician whose work ranges from Rocks new way to Classical and ballets with Burt Bacharach , is born in London.

And 1975, cause tramps like us, baby we were born to run.

Bruce Springsteen’s album-Born to Run, considered of rock and roll masterpiece, is released.

Today in History. August 25th. Sandy Kozel the Associated Press.