Today in History

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Today in History

By Correspondent

 
YEARDAYEVENT
1308Feb 25Edward II was crowned King of England.
1336Feb 25The Knights of the Cross sieged the Pilenai Castle in Samogitia. The defenders burned all their goods and committed suicide.
1418Feb 25At the Constance church synod the Orthodox Metropolitan of Kiev and Lithuania, Gregory Camblak, proposed a union between the Orthodox and Catholic church.
1536Feb 25Jacob Hutter (d.1536), Anabaptist evangelist from South Tyrol, was burned as a heretic in Austria. He had founded of a “community of love” in 1528, whose members shared everything.
1570Feb 25Pope Pius V issued the bull Regnans in Excelsis which excommunicated Queen Elizabeth the First of England. This absolved her subjects from allegiance. Elizabeth responded by hanging and burning Jesuits.
1601Feb 25Robert Devereux (b.1566), 2nd earl of Essex, was beheaded following a conviction of treason. His plan to capture London and the Tower had failed.
1642Feb 25Dutch settlers slaughtered lower Hudson Valley Indians in New Netherland, North America, who sought refuge from Mohawk attackers.
1707Feb 25Italian playwright Carlo Goldoni (d.1793) was born in Venice. “He who talks much cannot always talk well.”
1713Feb 25Frederik I (b.1657), King of Prussia (1701-13), died.
1728Feb 25Peter II Alekseyevich (1715-1730) was crowned as czar of Russia.
1751Feb 25The 1st performing monkey exhibited in America was in NYC.
1778Feb 25Jose Francisco de San Martin (d.1850) was born in Argentina. He liberated Argentina, Chile and Peru. Protector of Peru (1821-1822).
1779Feb 25Fort Sackville, originally named Fort Vincennes, was captured by Colonel George Rogers Clark in 1779. Col. Clark led a force of some 170 men from Kaskaskia to lay siege to Fort Sackville in January, and received Hamilton”˜s surrender on February 25. With the surrender of Fort Sackville, American forces gained effective control of the Old Northwest, thereby affecting the outcome of the Revolutionary War. The fort, which Clark described as “a wretched stockade, surrounded by a dozen wretched cabins called houses,” was located near present-day Vincennes, Indiana.
1781Feb 25American General Nathanael Greene crossed the Dan River on his way to his March 15th confrontation with Lord Charles Cornwallis at Guilford Court House, N.C.
1791Feb 25President George Washington signed a bill creating the Bank of the United States.
1793Feb 25The department heads of the U.S. government met with President  Washington at his Mt. Vernon home for the first Cabinet meeting on record.
1803Feb 25The 1,800 sovereign German states united into 60 states.
1804Feb 25Thomas Jefferson was nominated for president at the Democratic-Republican caucus.
1815Feb 25Napoleon left his exile on the Island of Elba, intending to return to France.
1831Feb 25The Polish army halted the Russian advance into their country at the Battle of Grochow.
1836Feb 25Samuel Colt patented the first revolving barrel multi-shot firearm. This allowed the shooter to fire 5 or 6 times before reloading.
1837Feb 25Cheyney University was established in Pennsylvania through the bequest of Richard Humphreys, and became the oldest institution of higher learning for African Americans. It was initially named the African Institute.
1841Feb 25Pierre Auguste Renoir (d.1919), French painter, was born. He was an Impressionist painter, father of Jean Renoir, and founder of the French Impressionist movement. He was the son of a Paris tailor and began his career as a porcelain painter in the Sevres china factory. His paintings included “Luncheon of the Boating Party,” “Self-portraits” (1875 & 1899) and “Sleeping Girl With a Cat” (1880).
1850Feb 25Doro Eldengge Huwangdi (b.1782), the Daoguang emperor, died. He was the 8th emperor of the Manchurian Qing dynasty and the 6th Qing (1820-1850) emperor to rule over China.
1856Feb 25Charles Lang Freer, U.S. art collector, was born.
1859Feb 25The “insanity plea” was 1st used to prove innocence.
1862Feb 25The ironclad Monitor was commissioned at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
1863Feb 25The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) was created as a bureau of the US Department of the Treasury by the National Currency Act. The OCC was charged with responsibility for organizing and administering a system of nationally chartered banks and a uniform national currency. It was passed to create a market in government bonds needed to finance the Civil War. The act required that bank notes issued by commercial banks be uniform in appearance and that 90% be backed by collateral consisting of US Treasury securities. Prior to the Civil War virtually the only currency was local and issued by banks. The government issued “greenbacks” to finance the Civil War.” The 1863 NCA was superseded by the National Bank Act of 1864.
1865Feb 25General Joseph E. Johnston replaced John Bell Hood as Commander of the Confederate Army of Tennessee. Arthur Fremantle made a breathtaking tour of the Confederacy. Within three months he had met most of the top Confederate leaders, including Robert E. Lee, James Longstreet, Joseph Johnston and Jefferson Davis.
1870Feb 25Hiram Revels (Sen-R-MS) was sworn in as the 1st black member of Congress.
1879Feb 25Congress passed the 1st Timberland Protection Act.
1885Feb 25US Congress condemned barbed wire around government grounds.
1888Feb 25John Foster Dulles was born. He served as Secretary of State to President Eisenhower (1953-1959).
1894Feb 25Meher Baba, spiritual leader, was born.
1899Feb 25Paul Julius Reuter (b.1816), founder of the British news agency that bears his name, died in Nice, France. In 2003 Brian Mooney and Barry Simpson authored “Breaking news: How the Wheels Came off at Reuters.”
1901Feb 25[Herbert] Zeppo Marx, comedian, actor (Marx Brothers), was born in NYC.
1904Feb 25J.M. Synge’s play “Riders to the Sea” opened in Dublin. [see Jan 25]
1905Feb 25Adele Davis, nutritionist, was born.
1908Feb 25The 1st tunnel under Hudson River (railway tunnel) opened. The McAdoo Tunnel was completed March 8, 1904, but only officially opened on this date.
1910Feb 25The Dalai Lama fled from the Chinese and took refuge in India.
1911Feb 25A rare snowstorm hit San Francisco.
1913Feb 25Jim Backus, actor (Mr. Magoo, Thurston Howell III-Gilligan’s Island), was born in Cleveland.
1914Feb 25John Tenniel (b.1820), English illustrator, died. He is best remembered for his illustrations in Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking-Glass.”
1917Feb 25Anthony Burgess, English writer (A Clockwork Orange), was born.
1919Feb 25Oregon introduced the first state tax on gasoline at one cent per gallon, to be used for road construction.
1926Feb 25Francisco Franco became Generalissimo of Spain.
1928Feb 25Bell Labs introduced a new device to end the fluttering of the television image.
1928Feb 25In Mexico Toribio Romo Gonzalez (b.1900), a Catholic priest, was killed during the Cristero War. He was canonized as a saint on May  21, 2000, by Pope John Paul II, and later came to be regarded as the patron saint of migrants.
1932Feb 25The German state government of Brunswick, in which the Nazi Party participated, appointed Adolph Hitler of Austria to a minor administrative post this month and on this day gave him German citizenship. Hitler was thus able to stand against Hindenburg in the forthcoming Presidential election.
1933Feb 25The 1st genuine aircraft carrier was christened: USS Ranger.
1937Feb 25Basia Johnson, maid, was born. She later inherited the Johnson & Johnson fortune.
1937Feb 25Bob Schieffer, newscaster (CBS Weekend News), was born in Austin, Tx.
1940Feb 25A hockey game was televised for the first time, by New York City station W2XBS, as the New York Rangers defeated the Montreal Canadiens, 6-2, at Madison Square Garden.
1943Feb 25George Harrison (d. Nov 29, 2001) of the Beatles was born.
1944Feb 25U.S. forces destroyed 135 Japanese planes in Marianas and Guam.
1948Feb 25Communists seized power in Czechoslovakia in a coup d’etat.
1950Feb 25George Richards Minot (b.1885), physician (Nobel-1934), died.
1952Feb 25French colonial forces evacuated Hoa Binh in Indochina.
1953Feb 25General de Gaulle condemned the European Defense Community.
1956Feb 25Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev harshly criticized the late Josef Stalin in a speech before a Communist Party congress in Moscow. Stalin was secretly disavowed by Khrushchev at a party congress for promoting the “cult of the individual.”
1957Feb 25Nobosuke Kishi (1896-1987) began serving as prime minister of Japan. He continued for 2 terms to Jul 19, 1960.
1961Feb 25Paul Bikle climbed to record 14,100 meters (8.8 miles) in a glider.
1962Feb 25Maria Ludovica De Angelis (b.1880) died in Argentina. She helped expand hospital services for children. In 2004 she was beatified by Pope John Paul VI.
1964Feb 25Cassius Clay (later Muhammad Ali) became world heavyweight boxing champion by defeating Sonny Liston in Miami Beach.
1969Feb 25In Vietnam Navy Lt. Bob Kerry (25) took part in a SEAL raid in the Mekong Delta where over a dozen women, children and old men were killed in the village of Thanh Phong. Kerry received a Bronze Star for the raid and later strongly regretted his actions.
1970Feb 25Mark Rothko (b.1903), painter, committed suicide in NYC. He was born in Dvinsk, Russia, which is now Daugavpils, Latvia, and his family moved to Portland, Ore, in 1913.
1971Feb 25“Oh, Calcutta” opened at the Belasco Theater.
1973Feb 25The Stephen Sondheim musical “A Little Night Music” opened at Broadway’s Shubert Theater.
1975Feb 25Elijah Muhammad (b.1897 as Elijah Poole), US leader of the Detroit-based Nation of Islam and Black Muslims, died in Chicago. His son W. Deen Mohammed (1933-2008) was soon elected supreme minister of the Nation of Islam.
1976Feb 25The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states may ban the hiring of illegal aliens.
1980Feb 25A military coup took place in Suriname. Desi Bouterse seized control of Suriname five years after the country gained independence from the Netherlands. He stepped down in 1987 under international pressure but briefly seized power again in 1990.
1983Feb 25Tennessee Williams (71), playwright, was found dead in his NYC hotel suite.
1984Feb 25In Cubatao, Sao Paulo, Brazil, an explosion from a gasoline leak in a pipeline burned a nearby shantytown with than 500 deaths.
1985Feb 25Edwin Meese III was sworn in as US Attorney General.
1986Feb 25President Ferdinand E. Marcos fled the Philippines after 20 years of rule in the wake of a tainted election. Corazon Aquino assumed the presidency. Pres. Ferdinand Marcos was forced from office after 20 years of rule. He was accused of accumulating billions of dollars during his rule. The Marcoses fled to Hawaii and Imelda Marcos left behind her 5,400 shoes.
1987Feb 25US Supreme Court upheld affirmative action with a 5-4 vote.
1988Feb 25Chicago gave the Cubs baseball team the right to install lights and play up to 18 night games.
1989Feb 25President Bush left Japan, where he had attended the funeral of Emperor Hirohito, and arrived in China for a three-day visit.
1990Feb 25Nicaraguans voted in an election that led to an upset victory for opponents of the ruling Sandinistas. Daniel Ortega, communist president of Nicaragua, lost to Violeta Chamorro.
1991Feb 25During the Persian Gulf War, 28 Americans were killed when an Iraqi Scud missile hit a U.S. barracks in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.
1992Feb 25Natalie Cole won seven awards at the 34th annual Grammys, including best album for “Unforgettable.”
1993Feb 25President Clinton ordered the Pentagon to mount an airdrop of relief supplies into Bosnia-Herzegovina.
1994Feb 25Jersey Joe Walcott (80), boxer, died.
1995Feb 25Former President Jimmy Carter wound up a 54-hour visit to Haiti, denying he’d been given a chilly reception by Haitians whom he’d helped save from a potentially bloody U.S.-led intervention.
1996Feb 25In separate attacks 2 Palestinian suicide bombers blew up a bus in Jerusalem and a soldiers hitchhiking post in the coastal city of Ashkelon. 23 Israelis were killed, as well as 2 Americans and a Palestinian. More than 80 people were wounded. Hamas took responsibility.
1997Feb 25A jury in Media, Pa., convicted multimillionaire John E. du Pont of third-degree murder, deciding he was mentally ill when he killed world-class wrestler David Schultz. Du Pont was sentenced to serve 13- to 30-years in prison.
1998Feb 25At the Grammy Awards, Bob Dylan won best album and best contemporary folk album for “Time Out of Mind” while Shawn Colvin won song and record of the year for “Sunny Came Home.”
1999Feb 25A jury in Jasper, Texas, sentenced white supremacist John William King to death for chaining James Byrd Jr., a black man, to a pickup truck and dragging him to pieces in 1998.
2000Feb 25The US sharply criticized China for a marked deterioration in human rights.
2001Feb 25The Chinese-language film “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” became the most lucrative foreign movie in US history, but tanked in China.
2002Feb 25In NYC after a 35-year plot to accept bribes and cheat the city out of tax revenues, 16 tax assessors were arrested and charged with altering values of over 500 properties worth some $8 billion.
2003Feb 25Chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix said Iraq was showing new signs of real cooperation, but President Bush was dismissive, predicting Saddam Hussein would try to “fool the world one more time.”
2004Feb 25The Mel Gibson film “Passion of Christ” premiered on Ash Wednesday.
2005Feb 25Hall of Fame basketball coach John Chaney was suspended for the rest of the regular season by Philadelphia’s Temple Univ. for ordering rough play by one of his players during a game against Saint Joseph’s.
2006Feb 25A senior US diplomat said the US will continue to give humanitarian aid to ease the plight of the Palestinians despite militant group Hamas’s victory in elections.
2007Feb 25In Brazil gunmen killed five people in a Sao Paulo slum in what police suspect was a drug-related crime, bringing to 21 the death toll from attacks this month in South America’s biggest city.
2008Feb 25In Connecticut 5 former insurance company executives were found guilty of a scheme to manipulate the financial statements of the world’s largest insurance company, American International Group Inc.
2009Feb 25US Interior Sec. Ken Salazar put the brakes on leases, created under the Bush administration, on federal land for oil-shale development in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. He said the Bush royalty rates would shortchange taxpayers.
2010Feb 25President Barack Obama and his Democratic allies argued for sweeping health care overhaul in an extraordinary live-on-TV summit with Republicans who want far more modest changes
2011Feb 25President Barack Obama signed an executive order freezing assets held by Gadhafi and four of his children in the United States.
2012Feb 25In Afghanistan 2 American members of NATO forces were shot dead in the interior ministry in Kabul. Five people were reported killed in the attack, taking the five day death toll from protests over the burning of Korans at a US-run military base to 29. Six Afghan soldiers were killed and 16 others wounded while trying to defuse a roadside bomb.
2013Feb 25C. Everett Koop (96), former US Surgeon General (1981-1989), died at his home in Hanover, NH.
2014Feb 25Jim Lange (1932), former TV game host, died in Mill Valley, Ca. His shows included “The Dating Game” (1965-1978), “Hollywood Connection,” “$100,000 Name That Tune” and “The Newlywed Game.”
Source: Timelines of History   

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