Today is Friday, July 25, the 207th day of 2008. There are 159 days left in the year. On this date

Today is Friday, July 25, the 207th day of 2008. There are 159 days left in the year. On this date in 1956, the Italian liner Andrea Doria collides with the Swedish passenger ship Stockholm off the New England coast late at night and begins sinking; at least 51 people are killed. (The Andrea Doria sinks the following day, some 11 hours after the crash.)

In 1866, Ulysses S. Grant is named General of the Army of the United States, the first officer to hold the rank. In 1943, Benito Mussolini is dismissed as premier of Italy by Victor Emmanuel III, and placed under arrest. (However, Mussolini is later rescued by the Nazis, and re-asserts his authority.) In 1946, the United States detonates an atomic bomb near Bikini Atoll in the Pacific in the first underwater test of the device. In 1952, Puerto Rico becomes a self-governing commonwealth of the United States. In 1963, the United States, the Soviet Union and Britain initial a treaty in Moscow prohibiting the testing of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere, in space or underwater. In 1978, Louise Joy Brown, the first “test tube baby,” is born in Oldham, England; she’d been conceived through the technique of in-vitro fertilization. In 2000, a New York-bound Air France Concorde crashes outside Paris shortly after takeoff, killing all 109 people on board and four people on the ground; it is the first-ever crash of the supersonic jet.

July 25, 1983: It has cost the federal government about $700,000 to maintain the defunct Youngstown Steel Corp. property in Struthers since it seized the property in March 1982, an Economic Development Administration official says.

July 25, 1968: Five young boys were seen fleeing after fire bombs struck the homes of the Rev. and Mrs. Arthur W. Deutsch on Michigan Ave. and William Stanton on Park Avenue.

A 17-year-old South Side youth is captured at gunpoint and two others flee after being surprised by the owner during a break-in at Dials Frozen Custard on W. Woodland Ave.

July 25, 1958: Thunderstorms dump an inch and a half of rain on Canfield, causing widespread street flooding. Near Spencer, W. Va., seven members of a family, the mother and six children, drown when a flash flood washes their house away.

A 37-year-old Toronto, Canada, man charged with possession of counterfeit money, threatens to injure two newsmen and damages a $300 floodlight belonging to WFMJ-TV after being arraigned at the U.S. marshal’s office in Youngstown.

July 25, 1933: Michael Zec, 14, of Orangeville is killed when his collie dog, which he was chasing out of the house brushed up against a loaded shotgun leaning against a wall. The gun fell over, discharging and striking the boy in the chest.