Today is Friday, Aug. 29, the 241st day of 2025
with 124 to follow.
The moon is waxing. Morning stars are Jupiter, Neptune, Saturn, Uranus and Venus. Evening stars are Mars, Mercury, Neptune and Saturn.
On this date in history:
In 1533, Atahualpa, last of the Inca rulers, was strangled under orders of Spanish conqueror Francisco Pizarro. The Inca Empire died with him.
In 1929, the German airship, the Graf Zeppelin, completed its around-the-world flight, beginning and ending at Lakehurst Naval Air Station in New Jersey.
In 1949, the Soviet Union exploded its first atomic bomb at a remote test site at Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan.
In 1958, the U.S. Air Force Academy opened at its permanent site in Colorado Springs, Colo., three years after its launch at a temporary location in Denver.
In 1965, U.S. astronauts Gordon Cooper and Charles Conrad landed safely to end the eight-day orbital flight of Gemini 5.
In 1973, U.S. District Judge John Sirica ordered U.S. President Richard Nixon to turn over secret Watergate tapes. Nixon refused and appealed the order.
In 1994, Israel and the PLO signed an agreement to shift West Bank administrative functions to the Palestinian National Authority.
In 2004, the Summer Olympics came to a close in Athens, Greece. The United States won the most medals, 103, 35 of them gold, led by swimmer Michael Phelps who took home six gold and two bronze medals.
In 2005, Hurricane Katrina slammed ashore on the Gulf Coast, inflicting severe damage in New Orleans and along the coastlines of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. Katrina killed more than 1,800 people and caused an estimated $125 billion in damage.
In 2013, the National Football League denied any wrongdoing but said it would "do the right thing" and pay $765 million to settle lawsuits brought by thousands of former players who developed concussion-related brain injuries.
In 2021, Hurricane Ida made landfall near Port Fourchon, La., with winds of 150 mph, leaving hundreds of thousands of people in the state without power. The storm tore a path through much of the eastern United States, killing more than 100 people and causing some $75 billion in damage.
In 2023, surgeons in Australia published a study saying they pulled a live 3-inch parasitic worm from a woman's brain in what was believed to be the first time this type of infection has been found in humans.
