Today in History
By Correspondent
| 1214 | Apr 25 | Louis IX, king of France (1226-1270), was born. |
| 1284 | Apr 25 | Edward II, king of England (1307-1327), was born. |
| 1590 | Apr 25 | The Sultan of Morocco launched his successful attack to capture Timbuktu. Morocco sent 4,000 soldiers under the Muslim Spaniard Judar Pasha to conquer Songhai. After a five month journey across the Shara, Pasha arrived with only 1,000 men, but his soldiers carried guns. The 25,000 men of the Songhai were no match for the guns and Gao, Timbuktu and most of Songhai fall. |
| 1599 | Apr 25 | Oliver Cromwell (d.1658) was born. He was an English military, political and religious leader, and dictator as Lord Protector of the Commonwealth from 1653-1658. |
| 1644 | Apr 25 | The Ming Chongzhen emperor committed suicide by hanging himself as Beijing fell to the bandit and rebel leader Li Dzucheng (39). The Qing, or Chi’ing, dynasty of China began when the Manchus invaded from Northeast China and overthrew the 300-year-old Ming Dynasty. |
| 1684 | Apr 25 | A patent was granted for the thimble. |
| 1707 | Apr 25 | At the Battle of Almansa, Franco-Spanish forces defeated Anglo-Portuguese. |
| 1719 | Apr 25 | Daniel Defoe’s novel “Robinson Crusoe” was published in London. Crusoe was based on the story of Alexander Selkirk (1676-1721), a man who was voluntarily put ashore on a desert island (1704-1709). |
| 1781 | Apr 25 | Gen. Nathanael Greene engaged British forces at Hobkirk’s Hill, South Carolina, and was forced to retreat. |
| 1792 | Apr 25 | Highwayman Nicolas Jacques Pelletier became the first person under French law to be executed by guillotine. |
| 1825 | Apr 25 | Charles Ferdinand Dowd was born. He standardized time zones. |
| 1840 | Apr 25 | Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Russian composer (1812 Overture), was born. |
| 1848 | Apr 25 | A. Graham discovered asteroid #9: Metis. |
| 1854 | Apr 25 | The Gadsden Purchase was ratified in the US. |
| 1859 | Apr 25 | Ground was broken in Egypt for the Suez Canal. |
| 1860 | Apr 25 | The first Japanese ambassador to the US, Niimi Buzennokami, and his 74-man staff arrived in Washington to present their credentials to Pres. James Buchanan. |
| 1862 | Apr 25 | Admiral David Farragut gained control of the Mississippi River at New Orleans, Louisiana. A few days later federal troops occupied the city. This stopped cotton sales by the Confederacy a revenue shortage that led to printed money and hyperinflation. In 2000 Jack D. Coombe published “Gunfire Around the Gulf,” which recounts the Southern Civil War naval campaign. |
| 1864 | Apr 25 | Battle of Marks’ Mill, Arkansas. |
| 1867 | Apr 25 | Tokyo was opened for foreign trade. |
| 1873 | Apr 25 | Walther de la Mare, poet and novelist (Memoir of a Midget, Come Hither), was born. |
| 1882 | Apr 25 | French commander Henri Riviere seized the citadel of Hanoi. Capt. Henri Reviere was later beheaded after he attempted to seize the coal deposits at Ha long Bay. The outraged French proceeded to colonize Vietnam. |
| 1883 | Apr 25 | Elsa Maxwell, writer (Jack Paar Show), was born in Keokuk, Iowa. |
| 1890 | Apr 25 | J. Palisa discovered asteroids #291 Alice & #292 Ludovica. |
| 1891 | Apr 25 | Pres. Benjamin Harrison visited SF. |
| 1892 | Apr 25 | Maud Hart Lovelace, children’s author, was born. |
| 1896 | Apr 25 | Fight in Central Dance Hall started a fire in Cripple Creek, Colorado. |
| 1898 | Apr 25 | The United States formally declared war on Spain. The US House passed the declaration 311 to 6. |
| 1900 | Apr 25 | Wolfgang Pauli, physicist (Nobel 1945), was born in Austria. |
| 1901 | Apr 25 | Erve Beck hit the 1st home run in the American League. |
| 1906 | Apr 25 | J.H. Metcalf discovered asteroid #599: Luisa. |
| 1907 | Apr 25 | Paula Trueman, actress (Gran-Billy), was born in NYC. |
| 1912 | Apr 25 | Gladys L. Presley, mother of Elvis Presley, was born. |
| 1913 | Apr 25 | Earl Bostic, alto sax player (Flamingo, Temptation), was born in Tulsa, OK. |
| 1914 | Apr 25 | Ross Lockridge, Jr., novelist (Raintree Country), was born. |
| 1918 | Apr 25 | Ella Fitzgerald (d.1996), jazz singer, was born. She became known as the ”˜First Lady of Song.’ |
| 1923 | Apr 25 | Albert King, blues singer/guitar (Bad Look Blues), was born in Mississippi. |
| 1925 | Apr 25 | General Paul von Hindenburg took office as president of Germany. |
| 1926 | Apr 25 | Puccini’s opera Turandot premiered at La Scala in Milan with Arturo Toscanini conducting. |
| 1930 | Apr 25 | Paul Mazursky, US writer, director (Moscow on the Hudson), was born. |
| 1932 | Apr 25 | William Roache, actor (Ken Barlow-Coronation Street), was born in England. |
| 1934 | Apr 25 | Denny “Scott” Miller, actor (Wagon Train), was born in Bloomington, Ind. |
| 1937 | Apr 25 | Bo Brundin, actress (Rhinemann Exchange), was born in Stockholm, Sweden |
| 1938 | Apr 25 | A seeing eye dog was first used. |
| 1940 | Apr 25 | Al Pacino, actor (And Justice For All, Godfather, Scorpio), was born in NYC. |
| 1945 | Apr 25 | Stu Cook, rock bassist (Creedence Clearwater Revival-Proud Mary), was born. |
| 1946 | Apr 25 | Talia Shire, actress (Adrienne-Rocky, Godfather), was born in Lake Success, NY. |
| 1949 | Apr 25 | Michael Brown, keyboardist (Left Bank-Don’t Walk Away Renee), was born. |
| 1950 | Apr 25 | Steve Ferrone, drummer (Average White Band), was born. |
| 1951 | Apr 25 | After a three day fight in the Battle of Imjim River against Chinese Communist Forces, the Gloucestershire Regiment was annihilated on “Gloucester Hill,” in Korea. |
| 1952 | Apr 25 | American Bowling Congress approved use of an automatic pinsetter. |
| 1953 | Apr 25 | The magazine Nature published an article by biologists Francis Crick and James Watson, describing the “double helix” of DNA. |
| 1954 | Apr 25 | Bell Labs in NYC announced the 1st solar battery. |
| 1955 | Apr 25 | The 1st cases of polio in children who received a vaccine were reported. It was later found that 2 batches of vaccine made by Cutter Laboratories of Berkeley, Ca., contained live polio virus. |
| 1956 | Apr 25 | Elvis Presley’s “Heartbreak Hotel” goes number one. |
| 1957 | Apr 25 | The 1st experimental sodium nuclear reactor operated. |
| 1959 | Apr 25 | St. Lawrence Seaway linking Atlantic, Great Lakes opened to shipping. |
| 1960 | Apr 25 | First submerged circumnavigation of the Earth was completed by a Triton submarine. In 1962 Edward Latimer “Ned” Beach (b.19180, Navy captain authored “Around the World Submerged.” |
| 1961 | Apr 25 | SF Giants baseball games began to appear on TV. |
| 1962 | Apr 25 | Operation Dominic began with a test blast on Christmas Island. The operation was a series of 105 nuclear test explosions conducted in 1962 and 1963 by the United States. Those conducted in the Pacific are sometimes called Dominic I. The blasts in Nevada are known as Dominic II. |
| 1967 | Apr 25 | Britain granted internal self-government to Swaziland. The new Swaziland flag included a black and white shield to depict racial harmony. |
| 1971 | Apr 25 | US canal rights in Nicaragua and rights to Nicaragua’s Corn Islands expired. |
| 1972 | Apr 25 | Hans-Werner Grosse (b.1922), German glider pilot, glided 907.7 miles (1,461 km) in an AS-W-12. |
| 1974 | Apr 25 | Marshal Antonio de Spinola (1910-1996) was called to the barricades in Portugal to receive the surrender of the 41-year old regime of Antonio Salazar. Spinola was then named head of state by the 7-member military junta, which included Gen. Costa Gomes. The Carnation Revolution changed the Portuguese regime from an authoritarian dictatorship to a democracy after two years of a transitional period known as PREC (Processo Revolucionário Em Curso), characterized by social turmoil and power dispute between left and right wing political forces. |
| 1975 | Apr 25 | The 1st Boeing Jetfoil revenue service began between Hong Kong and Macao. |
| 1978 | Apr 25 | The US Supreme Court ruled pension plans can’t require women to pay more. |
| 1979 | Apr 25 | N. Chernykh, Soviet-Russian, discovered asteroids |
| 1980 | Apr 25 | President Jimmy Carter announced the hostage rescue disaster in Iran. |
| 1982 | Apr 25 | In accordance with Camp David agreements, Israel completed the Sinai withdrawal. Ariel Sharon, as defense minister, directed the dismantling of Israeli settlements in the Sinai Peninsula. Nearly 5,000 residents and many more sympathizers were dragged off roofs |
| 1983 | Apr 25 | The Pioneer 10 spacecraft crossed Pluto’s orbit, speeding on its endless voyage through the Milky Way. |
| 1984 | Apr 25 | Richard Benedict (64), actor, died of a heart attack. |
| 1985 | Apr 25 | Murray Matheson (72), actor (Felix-Banacek), died. |
| 1986 | Apr 25 | In Swaziland King Mswati III was crowned. He succeeded his father Sobhuza II as ruler of the southern African kingdom. |
| 1987 | Apr 25 | Thousands of people gathered in Washington for three days of protests against U.S. foreign policy, particularly toward Central America and South Africa. |
| 1988 | Apr 25 | “Nightline” went on location to Jerusalem, Israel. |
| 1989 | Apr 25 | Japanese Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita announced his resignation in order to take responsibility for his involvement in Japan’s Recruit stock scandal. |
| 1990 | Apr 25 | In the 25th Academy of Country Music Awards Clint Black and Kathy Mattea won. |
| 1991 | Apr 25 | “Secret Garden” opened at St. James Theater in NYC for 709 performances. |
| 1992 | Apr 25 | The Ms. Foundation began its “Take Our Daughters to Work Day.” |
| 1993 | Apr 25 | Hundreds of thousands of gay rights activists and their supporters marched in Washington, D.C., demanding equal rights and freedom from discrimination. |
| 1994 | Apr 25 | Conservative Tsutomu Hata, former foreign minister, became prime minister of Japan, succeeding Morihiro Hosokawa as political infighting continued. |
| 1995 | Apr 25 | Ginger Rogers, show business legend died in Rancho Mirage, Calif., at age 83. |
| 1996 | Apr 25 | Princess Nonhlanhla Zulu disappeared during a gang attack on a royal residence in KwaMashu black township near Durban, South Africa. |
| 1997 | Apr 25 | The Clinton administration extended the area over which the northwest coast silvery Coho salmon is considered a “threatened” species. |
| 1998 | Apr 25 | Whitewater prosecutors questioned first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton on videotape about her work as a private lawyer for the failed savings and loan at the center of the investigation. |
| 1999 | Apr 25 | On the third and final day of their Washington summit, NATO leaders promised military protection and economic aid to Yugoslavia’s neighbors for standing with the West against Slobodan Milosevic. Pres. Yeltsin called Pres. Clinton to search for a solution to Kosovo. |
| 2000 | Apr 25 | The Ohio state motto, “with God, all things are possible,” was declared unconstitutional by a federal appeals court. |
| 2001 | Apr 25 | In unusually blunt terms, President Bush warned China that an attack on Taiwan could provoke a U.S. military response |
| 2002 | Apr 25 | Pres. Bush met with Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, who told him bluntly that the US must temper its support of Israel. Abdullah gave Bush an 8-point proposal for Middle East peace. |
| 2003 | Apr 25 | The Pentagon announced that Army Secretary Thomas White, whose tenure as civilian chief of the military’s largest service was marked by tensions with his boss, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, was leaving office. |
| 2004 | Apr 25 | In Washington DC tens of thousands of women gathered for an abortion-rights rally as Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton told several hundred of them the issue is about women gaining full equality. |
| 2005 | Apr 25 | President Bush sought relief from record-high gas prices and support for Middle East peace as he opened his Texas ranch to Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. |
| 2006 | Apr 25 | President Bush ordered a temporary suspension of environmental rules for gasoline, making it easier for refiners to meet demand and possibly dampen prices at the pump. He also halted for the summer the purchase of crude oil for the government’s emergency reserve. |
| 2007 | Apr 25 | Brushing off a presidential veto threat, the House passed, 218-208, a $124.2 billion supplemental spending bill ordering US troops to begin coming home from Iraq in the fall of 2007. |
| 2008 | Apr 25 | Wachovia Corp. agreed to pay as much as $144 million to settle an 18-month government investigation into its relationships with telemarketers that allegedly harmed 350,000 to 500,000 consumers. |
| 2009 | Apr 25 | The World Health Organization called an emergency meeting of experts to consider declaring an international public health emergency over the swine flu outbreak believed to have killed dozens of people in Mexico and sickened at least seven in the US. |
| 2010 | Apr 25 | In California Fresno police began a crackdown on gangs after 3 people were killed in separate shootings. By May 10 police made some 648 arrests including 216 for felony offenses. |
| 2011 | Apr 25 | In Arkansas powerful storms caused flooding and a tornado that left 10 people dead. |
| 2012 | Apr 25 | US federal officials announced that multiple airport screeners have been arrested for allegedly taking handsome bribes to look the other way while loads of illegal drugs slipped through security at Los Angeles International Airport. |
| 2013 | Apr 25 | The George W. Bush presidential library was dedicated in Dallas, Texas. |
| 2014 | Apr 25 | President Barack Obama wrapped up a state visit to Japan during which he assured America’s ally that Washington would come to its defense, but failed to clinch a trade deal key to both his “pivot” to Asia and PM Shinzo Abe’s economic reforms. |
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