Today is the 237th day of 2015 and the 66th day of summer.

TODAY'S HISTORY: In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson signed legislation establishing the National Park Service.

In 1944, Allied troops liberated Paris after four years of German occupation.

In 1950, President Harry Truman ordered the Army to take control of U.S. railroads in order to prevent strikes.

In 1967, American Nazi Party leader George Lincoln Rockwell was shot dead by a former aide in Arlington, Virginia.

TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS: Allan Pinkerton (1819-1884), detective; Walt Kelly (1913-1973), cartoonist; Van Johnson (1916-2008), actor; Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990), conductor/composer; Monty Hall (1921- ), TV personality; Althea Gibson (1927-2003), tennis player; Sean Connery (1930- ), actor; Regis Philbin (1931- ), TV personality; Tom Skerritt (1933- ), actor; Elvis Costello (1954- ), singer-songwriter/musician; Tim Burton (1958- ), filmmaker; Rachael Ray (1968- ), TV personality; Blake Lively (1987- ), actress.

TODAY'S FACT: The Voyager 2 spacecraft, which made its closest approaches to Saturn and Neptune on this day in 1981 and 1989 respectively, continues to receive and transmit data -- 37 years since its launch in August 1977.

TODAY'S SPORTS: In 1985, 20-year-old pitching phenom Dwight Gooden of the New York Mets became the youngest 20-game winner in major league history.

TODAY'S QUOTE: "Any great work of art ... revives and readapts time and space, and the measure of its success is the extent to which it makes you an inhabitant of that world -- the extent to which it invites you in and lets you breathe its strange, special air." -- Leonard Bernstein

TODAY'S NUMBER: 39 -- miles swum (on a zigzagging course) by Capt. Matthew Webb as he became the first person in recorded history to cross the English Channel unassisted, on this day in 1875.

TODAY'S MOON: Between first quarter moon (Aug. 22) and full moon (Aug. 29).

Today is the 236th day of 2015 and the 65th day of summer.

TODAY'S HISTORY: In 1814, British forces invaded Washington, D.C., and set fire to the White House.

In 1949, President Harry Truman formally announced that the North Atlantic Treaty was in effect.

In 1981, Mark David Chapman was sentenced in New York for the murder of John Lennon.

In 2006, the International Astronomical Union announced a new definition for "planet," which reclassified Pluto as a "dwarf planet."

TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS: Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986), author; Paulo Coelho (1947- ), author; Mike Shanahan (1952- ), football coach; Mike Huckabee (1955- ), politician/TV personality; Stephen Fry (1957- ), actor/comedian; Cal Ripken Jr. (1960- ), baseball player; Jared Harris (1961- ), actor; Marlee Matlin (1965- ), actress; Reggie Miller (1965- ), basketball player; Dan Henderson (1970- ), mixed martial artist; Dave Chappelle (1973- ), actor/comedian; Arian Foster (1986- ), football player; Rupert Grint (1988- ), actor.

TODAY'S FACT: In 1891, Thomas Edison received a patent for his Kinetograph motion picture camera and the Kinetoscope viewer.

TODAY'S SPORTS: In 1989, baseball commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti banned Pete Rose from the sport for gambling on Major League Baseball games.

TODAY'S QUOTE: "Waiting is painful. Forgetting is painful. But not knowing which to do is the worst kind of suffering." -- Paulo Coelho, "By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept"

TODAY'S NUMBER: 5 -- dwarf planets in our solar system currently recognized by the International Astronomical Union: Pluto, Ceres, Eris, Haumea and Makemake.

TODAY'S MOON: Between first quarter moon (Aug. 22) and full moon (Aug. 29).

Today is the 235th day of 2015 and the 64th day of summer.

TODAY'S HISTORY: In 1305, Scottish leader William Wallace was executed in London.

In 1939, Germany's Adolf Hitler and the Soviet Union's Joseph Stalin signed a nonaggression pact.

In 1942, the Battle of Stalingrad began as Nazi and Soviet troops fought for control of the city.

In 1966, the Lunar Orbiter 1 spacecraft transmitted the first photo of Earth from orbit around the moon.

In 1999, the first cases of West Nile virus in the Western Hemisphere were reported in New York City.

TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS: William Ernest Henley (1849-1903), poet; Edgar Lee Masters (1868-1950), author; Ernie Bushmiller (1905-1982), cartoonist; Gene Kelly (1912-1996), actor/dancer; Vera Miles (1929- ), actress; Barbara Eden (1934- ), actress; Shelley Long (1949- ), actress; Rick Springfield (1949- ), singer/musician; Jay Mohr (1970- ), actor/comedian; River Phoenix (1970-1993), actor; Ray Park (1974- ), actor/stuntman; Kobe Bryant (1978- ), basketball player; Jeremy Lin (1988- ), basketball player.

TODAY'S FACT: In 2000, the first "Survivor" season finale aired. Corporate trainer Richard Hatch won the $1 million prize.

TODAY'S SPORTS: In 1969, Taiwan won its first Little League World Series. The nation went on to win nine more titles in the next 12 years.

TODAY'S QUOTE: "The Earth keeps some vibration going/ There in your heart, and that is you./ And if the people find you can fiddle,/ Why, fiddle you must, for all your life." -- Edgar Lee Masters, "Fiddler Jones"

TODAY'S NUMBER: 22 -- listings with the surname Hitler in the New York City phone book prior to World War II. None were listed there when the war ended.

TODAY'S MOON: Between first quarter moon (Aug. 22) and full moon (Aug. 29).