On this day in History - Feb. 25

• 0138 - The Emperor Hadrian adopts Antoninus Pius, effectively making him his successor.
• 1246 - Dafydd ap Llywelyn dies. Prince of Gwynedd
• 1398 - Xuande was born (d. 1435). Emperor of China.
• 1522 - William Lilye dies. English classical scholar
• 1536 - Berthold Haller dies (b. 1492). German-born reformer.
• 1553 - Hirate Masahide dies : suicide (b. 1492). Japanese retainer and the tutor of Oda Nobunaga.
• 1554 - Lautaro, líder mapuche ataca Concepción (Chile).
• 1558 - Eleanor of Austria dies (b. 1498). Queen of Portugal and France.
• 1570 - Pope Pius V excommunicates Queen Elizabeth I of England.
• 1577- King Eric XIV of Sweden dies (b. 1533) .
• 1591 - Friedrich von Spee was born (b. 1635). German writer.
• 1601 - Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, English politician, is executed for treason in revolt against Queen Elizabeth (b. 1566).
• 1634 - Albrecht von Wallenstein dies (b. 1583). Austrian general.
• 1643 - New World: Dutch massacre of friendly Indians at Pavonia, near present-day Hackensack, New Jersey, is ordered by William Kieft, Governor of New Netherlands. 120 Wecquaesgeek men, women and children asleep in their wigwams die
• 1643 - Ahmed II was born (d. 1695). Ottoman Sultan.
• 1643 - Marco da Gagliano dies (b. 1582). Italian composer.
• 1655 - Daniel Heinsius dies (b. 1580). Flemish scholar.
• 1663 - Pierre Antoine Motteux was born (d. 1718). French-born English dramatist.
• 1682 - Giovanni Battista Morgagni was born (d. 5 Dec 1771). Italian anatomist and pathologist whose works helped make anatomy an exact science. His early studies of particularly the throat, and the sinus and hydatid of Morgagni in this region perpetuate his name.
• 1682 - Alessandro Stradella dies (b. 1644). Italian composer.
• 1692 - Karl Ludwig, Freiherr von Pöllnitz was born (d. 1775). German adventurer and writer.
• 1707 - Carlo Goldoni was born (d. 1793). Italian writer.
• 1713 - King Frederick I of Prussia dies (b. 1657).
• 1714 - René Nicolas Charles Augustin de Maupeou was born (d. 1792). Chancellor of France
• 1714 - Hyde Parker was born (d. 1782). British admiral.
• 1715 - Pu Songling was born (d. 1640). Chinese writer.
• 1723 - Sir Christopher Wren dies (b. 20 Oct 1632). English architect, astronomer, and geometrician.
• 1725 - Karl Wilhelm Ramler was born (d. 1798). German poet.
• 1752 - John Graves Simcoe was born (d. 1806). First Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada.
• 1756 - Eliza Haywood dies (b. 1693). English actress and writer.
• 1778 - José de San Martín was born (17 Aug 1850). Argentine general, liberator of Spanish South America along with Simón Bolívar.
• 1793 - George Washington holds the first Cabinet meeting as President of the United States.
• 1798 - Louis-Jules Mancini-Mazarini, Duc de Nivernais dies (b. 1716). French diplomat and writer.
• 1805 - Thomas Pownall dies (b. 1722). British colonial statesman.
• 1814 - Taras Shevchenko was born in Morintsy, Ukraine of the Russian Empire, he becomes the foremost Ukrainian poet of the 19th century & a major figure of the Ukrainian national revival.
• 1831 - Friedrich Maximilian Klinger dies (b. 1752). German writer.
• 1836 - Samuel Colt receives an American patent for the Colt revolver.
• 1837 - First US electric printing press patented by Thomas Davenport.
• 1841 - Pierre-Auguste Renoir was born in Limoges (d. 1919). French impressionist painter, graphic artist and sculptor.
• 1842 - Karl May was born (d. 1912). German author of travel and adventure stories, dealing with desert Arabs or American Indians in the Old West.
• 1842 - Ida Z. Lewis was born (d. 24 Oct 1911). American heroine keeper of Lime Rock Lighthouse.
• 1845 - George Reid was born (d. 1918). Fourth Prime Minister of Australia.
• 1848 - Edward Harriman, was born, railroad entrepreneur.
• 1850 - Daoguang dies (b. 1782). Emperor of China.
• 1852 - Thomas Moore dies (b. 1779). Irish poet.
• 1855 - Cesário Verde was born in Lisbon (d. 1886). Portuguese poet / Cesário Verde, nascia em Lisboa (m. 19 Jul 1886). Poeta português. Vítima de tuberculose aos 31 anos de idade, publicou poemas em jornais. A sua obra foi reunida pelo amigo Silva Pinto e publicada postumamente em 1887, com o título O Livro de Cesário Verde.
• 1860 - Sir William Ashley was born (d. 1927). Economic historian.
• 1860 - Chauncey Allen Goodrich dies (b. 1790). American clergyman, educator and lexicographer.
• 1866 - Benedetto Croce was born. Italian humanist, historian and philosopher.
• 1869 - Phoebus Levene was born (d. 6 Sep 1940). Phoebus (Aaron Theodor) Levene was a Russian-born American chemist and pioneer in the study of nucleic acids.
• 1870 - Hiram Rhoades Revels, a Republican from Mississippi, is sworn into the United States Senate, becoming the first African American ever to sit in the U.S. Congress.
• 1873 - Enrico Caruso was born (d. 1921). Italian tenor.
• 1877 - Erich von Hornbostel was born (d. 1935). American musicologist.
• 1878 - Juan María Gutiérrez dies. Argentine writer, translator and politician.
• 1882 - Ludvig Nordström was born in Härnösand. Swedish writer of realistic, socially conscious work.
• 1888 - John Foster Dulles was born (d. 1959). United States Secretary of State.
• 1890 - Dame Myra Hess was born (d. 1965). English pianist.
• 1890 - Vyacheslav Molotov was born (d. 1986). Soviet politician.
• 1892 - Andre Soudy was born in Beaugency, Loiret (d. 1913). French anarchist illegalist, member of the Bonnot Gang. Soudy first met Bonnot & other gang members at the anarchist Romainville colony.
• 1894 - Ernst Friedrich was born (d. 1967). German anarchist and pacifist. Founder of the Berlin Peace Museum. "Without social revolution there can be no lasting peace....We must prepare systematically an uprising against war."
• 1894 - Steele MacKaye dies (b. 6 Jun 1842). (James Morrison) Steele MacKaye was a dramatist, playwright, actor, and inventor. He opened the Madison Square Theatre (1879), one of the earliest of American "intimate" playhouses. 1894 -- US: Steele MacKaye dies in Buffalo, New York. American playwright/actor/theater manager who patents over 100 theatrical inventions, including folding theater seats.
• 1896 - Ida Noddack was born (d. 1979). German chemist who co-discovered (1925) element 75, rhenium, which they named after the Rhine River. They found trace amounts in the mineral columbite. She was working with Walter Noddack, her future husband (1926).
• 1898 - William Thomas Astbury was born (d. 4 June 1961). English physical biochemist who was the first to make use of X-ray diffraction patterns to study the structure of nucleic acids (1937). Astbury researched the method under Bragg for seven years, then investigated the structure of wool in both the stretched and unstretched forms.
• 1899 - Paul Julius Reuter, dies, founder of the Reuters News Agency (b. 1816).
• 1901 - J.P. Morgan incorporates the United States Steel Corporation.
• 1901 - Zeppo Marx was born (d. 1979). American actor.
• 1903 - João Gaspar Simões was born in Figueira da Foz. Portuguese critic of literature and writer.
• 1904 - Adelle Davis was born (d. 1974). American nutritionist, writer.
• 1904 - John Joseph Bittner was born (d. 14 Dec 1961). American geneticist who isolated a "Bittner milk factor" (1949) from the milk of certain mice, which strongly suggested that at least some viruses can cause cancer.
• 1908 - Frank G. Slaughter was born (d. 2001). American novelist.
• 1909 - Lev Artsimovich was born (d. 1 Mar 1973). Russian physicist who provided the basis of the Tokamak, a device capable of confining ultra-high temperature plasma suitable for research into controlled nuclear fusion.
• 1910 - Walt Woodward lives (d. 2001). Inspired the main character in David Guterson's novel, Snow Falling in Cedar. Publisher/editor of the Bainbridge Review from 1940 to 1961 in Washington State, he opposed Japanese internment during WWII, the only newspaper on the West coast to do so & a stance which cost him subscribers & advertising revenue in this small island community.
• 1910 - Millicent Fenwick was born (d. 1992). American fashion editor and politician.
• 1912 - Marie-Adélaïde, the eldest of six daughters of William IV, becomes the first reigning Grand Duchess of Luxembourg.
• 1912 - Guillaume IV, Grand Duke of Luxembourg dies (b. 1852).
• 1913 - US: IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) Paterson Silk Strike begins. The 1913 strike, which lasted over six months, eventually involved more than 24,000 workers & nearly 300 mills in Paterson.
• 1913 - The 16th Amendment to the United States Constitution, authorizing a graduated income tax, is ratified.
• 1913 - Jim Backus was born (d. 1989). American actor.
• 1913 - Gert Fröbe was born (d. 1988). German actor.
• 1915 - Charles Edwin Bessey dies (b. 21 May 1845). American botanist who introduced to the United States the systematic study of plant morphology and the experimental laboratory for botanical instruction on the college level.
• 1916 - Reinhard Bendix was born (d. 1991).German sociologist.
• 1917 - Anthony Burgess was born in Manchester (d. 1993). English novelist/critic, whose fiction is characterized by verbal inventiveness & social satire. His most famous book is A Clockwork Orange.
• 1918 - Bobby Riggs was born (d. 1995). American tennis player.
• 1918 - Barney Ewell was born (d. 1996). American athlete.
• 1919 - Oregon places a 1 cent per gallon tax on gasoline, becoming the first U.S. state to levy a gasoline tax.
• 1919 - Karl Pribram was born. Austrian neuroscientist.
• 1920 - James Gayley dies (b. 11 Oct 1855) American metallurgist who invented a device to ensure uniform humidity in the air stream going into blast furnaces .
• 1920 - Marcel-Auguste Dieulafoy dies (b. 3 Aug 1844). French archaeologist and civil engineer who excavated the palaces of the ancient Persian kings Darius I the Great and Artaxerxes II at Susa (modern Shush, Iran) in 1885.
• 1920 - William Faulkner poem "Fantoches" is published in "The Mississippian". 1922 -- Birthday of potato expert Donald MacLean, owner of a private collection of 367 varieties.
• 1921 - The Democratic Republic of Georgia is occupied by the Soviet Russia.
• 1921 - Pierre Laporte was born. Canadian statesman, murdered by FLQ terrorists in 1970.
• 1922 - Birthday of potato expert Donald MacLean, owner of a private collection of 367 varieties.
• 1924 - Hugh Esmor Huxley, was born. English molecular biologist whose study (with Jean Hanson) of muscle ultrastructure using the techniques of X-ray diffraction and electron microscopy led him to propose the sliding-filament theory of muscle contraction.
• 1925 - Edward Gorey was born (d. 2000). American illustrator.
• 1925 - Columbia Records (hoy Sony Music) hace la primera grabación musical eléctrica en Nueva York, Estados Unidos. Su intérprete fue el pianista y cantante estadounidense Art Gillham.
• 1925 - Glacier Bay National Monument (now Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve) is established in Alaska.
• 1926 - Francisco Franco es ascendido a general en España.
• 1926 - Author William Faulkner's first novel, Soldier's Pay, is published.
• 1928 - Charles Jenkins Laboratories of Washington, DC becomes the first holder of a television license from the Federal Radio Commission.
• 1928 - Larry Gelbart was born. American comedy writer.
• 1929 - Christopher George was born (d. 1983). American actor.
• 1932 - Faron Young was born (d. 1996). American singer.
• 1932 - Pierre Lariviere dies (b. 1884 ?). French anarchist, painter & caricaturist who illustrated some of Jean Grave's "Temps nouveaux".
• 1933 - The USS Ranger is launched, becoming the first custom-built aircraft carrier.
• 1933 - Author Heinrich Mann publishes his first exposure of the Nazis after leaving Germany.
• 1934 - Elizabeth Gertrude Knight Britton dies (b. 9 Jan 1858). American botanist known for her lasting contributions to bryology, the study of mosses.
• 1934 - Tony Lema was born (d. 1966). American pro golfer.
• 1935 - Sally Jessy Raphael was born. American talk show host .
• 1935 - José Macia (Pepe) was born in Santos, São Paulo. Brazilian soccer player
• 1937 -Ras Desta Demtu, Haile Selassie's son-in-law, is executed by the Italian administration in Abyssinia.
• 1937 - Tom Courtenay was born. British actor .
• 1937 - Bob Schieffer was born. American broadcast journalist
• 1938 - Herb Elliott was born. Australian runner.
• 1938 - Diane Baker was born. American actress.
• 1939 - Wilson Simonal was born in Rio de Janeiro. Brazilian singer.
• 1940 - Ron Santo was born. American baseball player.
• 1940 - Billy Packer was born. American sports broadcaster.
• 1943 - George Harrison was born (d. 29 Nov 2001). Musician (The Beatles) .
• 1943 - World War II: North AfricaGeneral Rommel's Afrika Corps are forced back through the Kasserine Pass in Tunisia, only five days after they had broken through.
• 1944 - François Cevert was born (6 Oct 1973). French F 1 race car driver.
• 1945 - Mario de Andrade (Mário Raul de Morais Andrade) dies in São Paulo ( 9 Oct 1893). Brazilian writer, essayst, novelist. and photographer. See Biography in English
• 1947 - Lee Evans was born. American athlete.
• 1948 - Communists took control of the government in Czechoslovakia.
• 1949 - Actor Robert Mitchum is released from a Los Angeles County prison farm after serving a 2-month sentence for marijuana possession.
• 1949 - Amin Maalouf was born. Lebanese writer.
• 1950 - George Richards Minot dies (b. 2 Dec 1885). American physician who received (with George Whipple and William Murphy) the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1934 for the introduction of a raw-liver diet for to regenerate blood hemoglobin in the treatment of pernicious anemia, which was previously an invariably fatal disease.
• 1950 - Neil Jordan was born. Director, writer, producer .
• 1950 - Néstor Kirchner was born. President of Argentina .
• 1951 - Don Quarrie was born. Jamaican sprinter .
• 1951 - The first Pan American Games are held in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
• 1953 - Sergey Nikolayevich Winogradsky dies (b. 1 Sep 1856). Russian microbiologist who helped to establish bacteriology as a major biological science. He was first to isolate the bacteria responsible for nitrification and nitrogen fixation by soil bacteria (1890).
• 1953 - José María Aznar was born. Former Prime Minister of Spain .
• 1954 - John Doe was born. Musician .
• 1954 - Regina Casé was born in Rio de Janeiro. Brazilian actress
• 1954 - Gamal Abdul Nasser is made premier of Egypt.
• 1956 - In his speech On the Personality Cult and its Consequences Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev denounces the actions of Joseph Stalin.
• 1957 - George "Bugs" Moran dies (b. 1893). American gangster.
• 1960 - John Cage's "Music for Amplified Toy Pianos" premiers, Middletown, Ct.
• 1960 - Lillian Hellman play "Toys in the Attic" opens on Broadway (556 perfs).
• 1961 -The United Arab Republic breaks of diplomatic relations with Belgium over the situation in the Congo.
• 1961 - Davey Allison was born (d. 1993). NASCAR driver.
• 1963 - Melville Jean Herskovits dies (b. 10 Sep 1895). American cultural anthropologist, born in Bellefontaine, Ohio, noted for having opened up the study of the New World Negro as a new field of research.
• 1963 - Vee Jay Records, a small Chicago-based label, releases the first Beatles record in the US, "Please Please Me" backed with "Ask Me Why." A smash in the UK, barely noticed in the US.
• 1964 - Grace Metalious dies (b. 1924). American writer.
• 1964 - Maurice Farman dies (b. 21 Mar 1877). French aircraft designer and manufacturer who contributed greatly to early aviation. In 1908, with his brother Henri, he made the first circular flight of over 1-km, completing a 1.6-km (one-mile) flight near Paris.
• 1964 - Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali) became world heavyweight boxing champion for the first time by knocking out Sonny Liston in Sonny Liston in seven rounds, in Miami Beach.
• 1966 - Samson Kitur was born (d. 2003). Kenyan athlete.
• 1966 - Téa Leoni was born in New York. American actress (Switch, Bad Boys).
• 1969 - Germany gives $5 million to an Arab terrorist as ransom for the passengers and crew of a hijacked jumbo jet.
• 1970 - Pedido de aprovação pelo Presidente da República dos estatutos da Associação para o Desenvolvimento Económico e Social (SEDES), apresentada por 147 individualidades, vindas da ala liberal do regime, de sectores católicos progressistas, e de correntes republicanas e socialistas .
• 1970 - US: Latvian-born American artist Mark Rothko commits suicide, New York City.
• 1970 - US: Isla Vista Bank of America burns. Riot in Isla Vista, California, protesting "Chicago 7" guilty verdicts, ends with the Bank of America in flames, part of nationwide upheavals since the verdicts came down on the 19th: with "half a million people in the streets"; explosions in three office buildings in NY; explosions in California, Washington, Maryland, Michigan.
• 1971 - Sean Astin was born. American actor.
• 1971 - Theodor Svedberg, dies (b. 30 Aug 1884). Swedish chemist who won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1926 for his studies in the chemistry of colloids and for his invention of the ultracentrifuge which he introduced (1924) as a technique for investigating the molecular weights of very large molecules.
• 1972 - Terrorism: Germany gives $5 million to an Arab terrorist as ransom for the passengers and crew of a hijacked jumbo jet.
• 1975 - Elijah Muhammad dies. Black Muslim leader.
• 1977 - 240 US citizens in Uganda are held hostage by Field Marshal Idi Amin Dada.
• 1977 - Josh Wolff,was born, Kansas City Wizards Striker.
• 1978 - Daniel "Chappie" James Jr. dies (b. 1920). American general.
• 1980 - Se crea la Universidad Nacional de la Patagonia "San Juan Bosco".
• 1986 - EDSA Revolution: President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines flees the nation after 20 years of rule; Corazon Aquino becomes the first Filipino woman president.
• 1986 - Philippines: Mass demonstrations overthrow Marcos dictatorship, Manila.
• 1986 - Egypt: Thousands of military police riot & destroy two luxury hotels.
• 1987 - James Coco dies (b. 1930). American actor.
• 1989 - President Carlos Salinas frees 1,000 political prisoners.
• 1989 - Hugo Casais dies. Portuguese baritone.
• 1990 - Violeta Chamorro was elected president of Nicaragua replacing Daniel Ortega, after a victory for opponents of the Sandinistas.
• 1991 - Gulf War: An Iraqi Scud missile hits an American military barracks in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia killing 28 US Marines.
• 1991 - Nigel Benn knocks out Gerald McClellan to retain his WBC Super Middleweight title. The fight is marred by tragedy as McClellan suffers some irreversible brain damage.
• 1993 - Eric Clapton gana seis Premios Emmy.
• 1993 - Rogério Paulo dies (b. 17 Nov. 1927 , in Angola). Portuguese actor.
• 1994 - Mosque of Abraham massacre: In the Cave of the Patriarchs in the West Bank city of Hebron, Dr. Baruch Kappel Goldstein opens fire with an assault rifle, killing 29 Palestinian worshippers and injuring 125 more before being subdued and beaten to death by survivors. Subsequent rioting kills 26 more Palestinians and 9 Israelis.
• 1994 - Jersey Joe Walcott dies (b. 1914). American boxer.
• 1994 - Baruch Goldstein dies (b. 1956). American-born mass killer
• 1996 - Haing S. Ngor dies (b. 1940). Cambodian-born actor.
• 1998 - Brendon Baerg was born. American actor .
• 1999 - Korea: North Korean Woo Yong Gak, probably the world's longest-serving political prisoner, is released by South Korea after 41 years in solitary confinement.
• 1999 - Glenn T. Seaborg dies (b. 19 Apr 1912). American atomic scientist, Nobel Prize laureate in Chemist.
• 2000 - The Swedish political party New Democracy is declared financially bankrupt.
• 2000 - Victoria Climbié dies assassinated (b. 1991). See Victoria Climbié Inquiry
• 2001 - Sir Donald Bradman dies (b. 1908). Australian cricketer .
• 2003 - Tom O'Higgins dies. Irish Chief Justice twice defeated as a presidential candidate .
• 2003 - Alberto Sordi dies. Italian comedy film legend .
• 2004 - On Ash Wednesday, Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ is released in movie theaters across the United States, grossing approximately $370 million domestically.
• 2005 - BTK suspect Dennis Rader arrested in Park City, Kansas.
• 2005 - Peter Benenson dies (b. 1921). Founder of Amnesty International.
• Kuwait's national day.
• People Power Day, special holiday in the Philippines.