25 July: Dino & Jerry Get Started; So Do Crock, Still, Mash & Bung

By The Associated Press 2 hrs 49 mins ago Today is Saturday, July 25, the 206th day of 2009. There are 159 days left in the year. See also: The UPI Almanac. Today's Highlight in History: One hundred years ago, in 1909, French aviator Louis Bleriot became the first person to fly an airplane across the English Channel, traveling from Calais to Dover in 37 minutes. On this date: In 1593, France's King Henry IV converted from Protestantism to Roman Catholicism. In 1832, one man was killed and three others injured in the first recorded railroad accident in U.S. history. The four were thrown from an otherwise vacant car on the Granite Railway near Quincy, Mass. In 1866, Ulysses S. Grant was named General of the Army of the United States, the first officer to hold the rank. In 1868, Congress passed an act creating the Wyoming Territory. In 1898, during the Spanish-American War, U.S. forces launched their invasion of Puerto Rico, the island that was one of Spain's two principal possessions in the Caribbean. In 1917, Mata Hari, the archetype of the seductive female spy, was sentenced to death in France as a German spy. In 1946, the United States detonated an atomic bomb near Bikini Atoll in the Pacific in the first underwater test of the device.In 1952, Puerto Rico became a self-governing commonwealth of the United States. In 1956, the Italian liner Andrea Doria collided with the Swedish passenger ship Stockholm off the New England coast late at night and began sinking; at least 51 people were killed.In 1963, the United States, the Soviet Union and Britain initialed a treaty in Moscow prohibiting the testing of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere, in space or underwater. In 1969, a week after the Chappaquiddick incident that claimed the life of Mary Jo Kopechne, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., pleaded guilty to a charge of leaving the scene of an accident; he went on television to call his failure to immediately notify authorities "indefensible." In 1984, Soviet cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya became the first woman to walk in space as she carried out more than three hours of experiments outside the orbiting space station Salyut 7. In 1994, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Jordan's King Hussein signed a declaration at the White House ending their countries' 46-year-old formal state of war. Ten years ago: The Woodstock '99 music festival in Rome, N.Y., ended in fires and looting. Lance Armstrong won his first Tour de France. Morocco held a funeral for King Hassan II. In 2000, a New York-bound Air France Concorde crashed outside Paris shortly after takeoff, killing all 109 people on board and four people on the ground; it was the first-ever crash of the supersonic jet. Five years ago: Israelis formed a human chain stretching 55 miles from Gaza to Jerusalem to protest Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Gaza Strip withdrawal plan. Lance Armstrong won a record sixth Tour de France. One year ago: An oxygen tank exploded aboard a Qantas Boeing 747-400, ripping a hole in the fuselage and forcing an emergency landing in the Philippines. President George W. Bush signed an executive order expanding sanctions against individuals and organizations in Zimbabwe associated with the regime of President Robert Mugabe. Computer science professor Randy Pausch, whose "last lecture" about facing terminal cancer became an Internet sensation and a best-selling book, died in Chesapeake, Va. at age 47. The Federal Communications Commission formally approved Sirius Satellite Radio Inc.'s $3.3 billion buyout of rival XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. California became the first state to ban trans fats from restaurant food. Today's Birthdays: Actress Barbara Harris is 74. Rock musician Jim McCarty (The Yardbirds) is 66. Rock musician Verdine White (Earth, Wind & Fire) is 58. Singer-musician Jem Finer (The Pogues) is 54. Model-actress Iman is 54. Cartoonist Ray Billingsley ("Curtis") is 52. Rock musician Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth) is 51. Actress-singer Bobbie Eakes is 48. Actress Katherine Kelly Lang (TV: "The Bold and the Beautiful") is 48. Actress Illeana Douglas is 44. Country singer Marty Brown is 44. Actor Matt LeBlanc is 42. Rock musician Paavo Lotjonen (Apocalyptica) is 41. Actor D.B. Woodside is 40. Actress Miriam Shor is 38. New York Mets left-handed reliever Billy Wagner is 38. Atlanta Braves pitcher Javier Vazquez is 33.

Today In Entertainment History -- On July 25th, 1946, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis began their partnership as a nightclub song and comedy act with a performance in Atlantic City. They split up in 1956. [People are paid actual fucking money to write crap like this:] In 1965, Bob Dylan was booed off the stage at the Newport Folk Festival when he began playing an electric guitar.

[& this:]

In 1965, Bob Dylan shocked his fans at the Newport Folk Festival when he played electric guitar during a performance with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. In 1966, guitarist Brian Jones played his last US concert with the Rolling Stones, in San Francisco. Jones died in 1969. In 1967, The Beatles took out an advertisement in the London Times urging the British government to legalize marijuana. Forty years ago, in 1969, Neil Young made his first concert appearance with Crosby, Stills and Nash. They played at the Fillmore East in New York. In 1975, the musical "A Chorus Line" opened on Broadway. In 1980, Kiss introduced its new drummer, Eric Carr, at a concert at the New York Palladium. Carr replaced Peter Criss, who began a solo career. In other music of morons news, AC/DC released "Back In Black," their first album with singer Brian Johnson. In 1990, comedian Roseanne Barr sang the National Anthem in San Diego before a major league baseball game, spit, then scratched herself. The crowd booed, and she later apologized. In 1997, Autumn Jackson was convicted of trying to extort $40 million dollars from Bill Cosby. She had claimed to be Cosby's illegitimate daughter. Ten tears ago, fires began burning out of control during the Red Hot Chili Peppers' set at Woodstock '99. Fans began looting the vendors and pelting police with bottles and fruit. [Those toads have the same effect on us. — Ed.] In 2001, Mariah Carey checked herself into a hospital suffering from an emotional and physical breakdown. In 2002, Jennifer Lopez filed for divorce from her second husband, Cris Judd. Thought for Today: "No matter what side of an argument you're on, you always find some people on your side that you wish were on the other side." — Jascha Heifetz, Russian-born American violinist (1901-1987).