July 25

1843: Scottish chemist Charles Macintosh, inventor of the rubberized raincoat that bears his name, died. 1909: Louis Blériot made the first successful crossing the English Channel in his Blériot XI monoplane. 1946: The first underwater nuclear explosion took place with the "Baker" atomic bomb during "Operation Crossroads" at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific. 1956: The Italian liner Andrea Doria collided with the Swedish ship Stockholm off the New England coast, claiming the lives of 51 people. 1959: The SR.N1 hovercraft became the first hovercraft to cross the English Channel. 1969: Sen. Ted Kennedy pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of the crime at Chappaquiddick, where he left Mary Jo Kopechne to drown in the car he drove off a bridge while drunk. 1978: Louise Joy Brown, the first test tube baby, was born in Oldham, England. 1987: Charles Draper, "the father of inertial navigation," died. 1984: Soviet cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya became the first woman to walk in space.