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

198513-year-old Samantha Smith and her father are killed in a plane crash in Maine. Two years earlier, the girl’s letter to the Kremlin led to her famous peace tour of the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

“ Soviet people did not want war. They are all like us, and they want no harm to the world just like we do.”

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

1930“Bond, James Bond.”

Sean Connery, the original actor to play super spy 007 on the silver screen, is born in Edinburgh, Scotland.

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

1954"Oh, what's so funny about peace, love and understanding?"Elvis Costello, the musician whose work ranges from rocks new wave to Classic and ballads with Burt Bacharach, is born in London.

And 1975"But till then 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.