On this day in History - Apr 25

• 0032 - Marcus Salvius Otho, was born Roman Emperor (d.0069).
• 1214 - Louis IX was born. King of France (1226-70)
• 1284 - King Edward II of England was born (d. 1327) .
• 1472 - Leon Battista Alberti, dies (b. 1404). Artist .
• 1566 - Diane de Poitiers, dies (b. 1499).Mistress of King Henry II of France .
• 1590 - The Sultan of Morocco launched his successful attack to capture Timbuktu.
• 1595 - Torquato Tasso, dies (b. 1544). Italian poet .
• 1599 - Oliver Cromwell, was born (d. 1658). Statesman.
• 1607 - Dutch fleet destroys anchored Spanish fleet at Gibraltar.
• 1614 - Amsterdam Bank of Loan forms
• 1707 - An Allied Austrian army is defeated by Bourbon army at Almansa (Spain) in the War of the Spanish Succession.
• 1719- Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe is published.
• 1744 - Anders Celsius, dies (b. 1701). Astronomer .
• 1792 - Highwayman Nicolas J. Pelletier becomes the first person executed by guillotine.
• 1792 - "La Marseillaise" (French national anthem) is composed.
• 1831 - The Lion of the West, a play celebrating Davy Crockett, opens in New York City.
• 1840 - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, was born (d. 1893). Composer.
• 1840 - Siméon-Denis Poisson, dies (b. 1781). Mathematician .
• 1846 - Mexican-American War: Open conflict begins over border disputes of Texas' boundaries.
• 1849 - The Governor General of Canada, Lord Elgin, signs the Rebellion Losses Bill, outraging Montreal's English population and triggering the Montreal Riots.
• 1849 - Felix Klein, was born (d. 1925). Mathematician.
• 1859 - Ground is broken for the Suez Canal.
• 1862 - American Civil War: Forces under Union Admiral David Farragut capture the Confederate city of New Orleans, Louisiana.
• 1864 - American Civil War: Battle of Mark's Mills - Confederate forces seize a Union wagon supply train on its way to Camden, Arkansas forcing Union General Frederick Steele to withdraw his troops to Little Rock, Arkansas.
• 1874 - Guglielmo Marconi, was born (d. 1937). Inventor, recipient of the Nobel Prize in physics 1909.
• 1878 - Anna Sewell, dies (b. 1820). Author .
• 1882 - French commander Henri Riviere seized the citadel of Hanoi in Indochina
• 1898 - Spanish-American War: The United States declares war on Spain; the U.S. Congress announces that a state of war has existed since April 21.
• 1900 - Wolfgang Ernst Pauli, was born (d. 1958). Physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics - 1945.
• 1901- New York becomes the first U.S. state to require automobile license plates.
• 1903 - Andrey Nikolayevich Kolmogorov, was born (d. 1987). Mathematician.
• 1906 - William J. Brennan, was born (d. 1997). Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
• 1908 - Edward R. Murrow, was born (d. 1965). Journalist.
• 1911 - Emilio Salgari, dies (b. 1862). Italian novelist .
• 1914 - Ross Lockridge, Jr., was born (d. 1948). Writer.
• 1915- The ANZAC tradition begins during World War I with a landing at Gallipoli on the Turkish coast.
• 1916 - Easter Rebellion: The United Kingdom declares martial law in Ireland (lasts until April 29 - the end of the rebellion).
• 1916- ANZAC Day commemorated for the first time.
• 1917 - Ella Fitzgerald, was born (d. 15 Jun 1996). Jazz singer. Grammy Award-winning singer [12]: Bill Bailey Won’t You Please Come Home, Mack the Knife, A-Tisket, A-Tasket;
• 1918 - Gerard Henri de Vaucouleurs, was born (d. 1995). Astronomer.
• 1924 - Albert King, was born. Musician .
• 1925 - Sammy Drechsel, was born (d. 1986). Journalist, film director and cabaretist.
• 1926 - Reza Khan is crowned Shah of Iran under the name "Reza Pahlavi".
• 1929 - José Angel Valente was born. Spanish poet (A modo the esperanza)
• 1930 - Paul Mazursky, was born. Film director, writer .( Harry and Tonto, An Unmarried Woman, Scenes from a Mall, The Pickle, Moscow on the Hudson, Down and Out in Beverly Hills, Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, The Tempest)
• 1932 - Meadlowlark Lemon, was born. Basketball star, member of the Harlem Globetrotters
• 1933 - Jerry Leiber, was born. Composer.
• 1933 - J. Anthony Lukas was born (d. 5 Jun 1997). Pulitzer Prize-winning author: Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families;
• 1933 - US & Canada drop Gold Standard
• 1937 - Michał Drzymała, dies (b. 1857). Famous Polish peasant fighting with German bureaucracy
• 1940 - Al Pacino, was born. Academy Award-winning actor: Scent of a Woman [1992]; Scarface, Serpico, The Godfather, Dick Tracy; Tony Award-winning actor: Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie [1969], The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel [1977]
• 1945 - Björn Ulvaeus, was born. Swedish singer, songwriter, ABBA member
• 1945 - United States and Russian troops meet in Torgau along the River Elbe, cutting the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany in two, a milestone in the approaching end of World War II in Europe.
• 1945 - The United Nations is organized in San Francisco, California, by 50 nations.
• 1946 - Talia Shire, was born. Actress .
• 1947 - Johann Cruyff, was born. Dutch footballer .
• 1952 - Ketil Bjørnstad, was born. Norwegian pianist .
• 1953 - Francis Crick and James D. Watson publish Molecular structure of nucleic acids: a structure for deoxyribose nucleic acid describing the double helix structure of DNA.
• 1959 - The St. Lawrence Seaway, linking the North American Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean, officially opens to shipping.
• 1961- Robert Noyce is granted a patent for an integrated circuit.
• 1964 - Hank Azaria, was born. Actor, voice actor .
• 1966 - Isabelle Pasco France, was born. Actress (Ave Maria)/model (Elle, Vogue)
• 1968 - John Tewksbury, dies (b. 1876). American athlete.
• 1969 - Joe Buck, was born. baseball and American football broadcaster .
• 1969 - Darren Woodson, was born. American football player .
• 1969 - Renée Zellweger, was born. Actress .
• 1971 - The country of Bangladesh was established.
• 1972 - Vietnam War: Nguyen Hue Offensive - The North Vietnamese 320th Division forces 5,000 South Vietnamese troops to retreat and traps about 2,500 others northwest of Kontum.
• 1972 - George Sanders, dies (b. 1906). Actor .
• 1974 - Carnation Revolution: A coup in Portugal restores democracy.
• 1975 - As North Vietnamese forces close in on the South Vietnamese capital Saigon, the Australian Embassy is closed and evacuated, almost ten years to the day since the first Australian troop commitment to South Vietnam.
• 1975 - 1st Boeing Jetfoil revenue service, Hong Kong to Macao
• 1975 - Mario Soares' Socialist Party wins 1st free election in Portugal
• 1976 - Tim Duncan, was born. Basketball star, two-time NBA MVP .
• 1976 - Rainer Schuettler, was born. German professional tennis player .
• 1976 - Portugal adopts constitution
• 1977 - Marguerite Moreau actress (Connie-Mighty Ducks, D2, D3)
• 1980 - A commando mission in Iran to rescue American embassy hostages is aborted after mechanical problems ground the rescue helicopters. Eight United States troops were killed in a mid-air collision during the failed operation.
• 1981 - More than 100 workers are exposed to radiation during repairs of a nuclear power plant in Tsuruga, Japan.
• 1982 - Captured in 1967, the Sinai peninsula was returned by Israel to Egypt, as part of the 1979 Camp David Accords.
• 1983 - American schoolgirl Samantha Smith is invited to visit the Soviet Union by its leader Yuri Andropov after he read her letter in which she expressed fears about nuclear war.
• 1983 - Pioneer 10 travels beyond Pluto's orbit.
• 1983 - Portugal's Soares' Partido Socialista wins parliamentary election
• 1984 - David Anthony Kennedy, the son of Robert F. Kennedy, was found dead of a drug overdose in a hotel room.
• 1988 - In Israel, John Demjanuk is sentenced to death for war crimes committed in World War II. He was accused of being a notorious guard at the Treblinka extermination camp known as "Ivan the Terrible" by survivors.
• 1989 - James Richardson is freed from a Florida prison 21 years after being wrongfully convicted of the murder of his seven children.
• 1990 - Space Shuttle program: STS-31 - Astronauts aboard the Discovery deploy the Hubble Space Telescope.
• 1990 - Violeta Barrios de Chamorro begins a 6 year term as Nicaragua's president .
• 1990 - Dexter Gordon, dies (b. 1923). Jazz musician .
• 1990- 25th Academy of Country Music Awards: Clint Black and Kathy Mattea win
• 1993 - 300,000 homosexuals march on Washington, DC demanding freedom from discrimination.
• 1993 - Russia elects Boris Yeltsin leader .
• 1994 - King Azlan Shah of Malaysia resigns
• 1995 - Ginger Rogers, dies (b. 1911). Actress, dancer .
• 1998 - Morris Wright, dies (b. 1910). American writer .
• 1999 - Lord Killanin, dies (b. 1914). Former IOC president.
• 2000 - David Merrick, dies (b. 1911). Producer .
• 2001 - Michele Alboreto,dies (b. 1956). Italian racing driver .
• 2002 - Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes, dies (b. 1971). Singer .
• 2003 - Samson Kitur, dies (b. 1966). Kenyan athlete.
• 2003 - Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, the anti-apartheid leader and ex-wife of former President Nelson Mandela, was sentenced to four years in prison for her conviction on fraud and theft charges. She was convicted of 43 counts of fraud and 25 of theft of money from a women's political league.
• ANZAC Day (Australia, New Zealand) .
• Carnation Revolution commemorated in Portugal (National Holiday) .
• Swaziland - National Flag Day .
• Feast day of St Mark .
• Festa della Liberazione, (Italy), annual commemoration by Italian Resistance organisations to mark the liberation of Italy at the end of the Second World War.
• Rastafarianism - Celebration of Haile Selassie's visit to Jamaica
• Roman Empire - Robigalia in honor of Robigus
• Official Red Hat Society day