Events
404
BC – Peloponnesian War: Lysander's Spartan Armies
defeated the Athenians and the war ends.
1134 – The name Zagreb was mentioned for the first
time in the Felician Charter relating to the establishment
of the Zagreb Bishopric around 1094.
1607 – Eighty Years' War: The Dutch fleet destroys
the anchored Spanish fleet at Gibraltar.
1644 – The Chongzhen Emperor, the last Emperor
of Ming Dynasty China, commits suicide during
a peasant rebellion led by Li Zicheng.
1707 – The Habsburg army is defeated by Bourbon
army at Almansa (Spain) in the War of the Spanish
Succession.
1792 – Highwayman Nicolas J. Pelletier becomes
the first person executed by guillotine.
1792 – La Marseillaise (the French national anthem)
is composed by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle.
1804 – The western Georgian kingdom of Imereti
accepts the suzerainty of the Russian Empire
1829 – Charles Fremantle arrives in HMS Challenger
off the coast of modern-day Western Australia
prior to declaring the Swan River Colony for the
United Kingdom.
1846 – Thornton Affair: Open conflict begins over
the disputed border of Texas, triggering the Mexican-American
War.
1847 – The last survivors of the Donner Party
are out of the wilderness.
1849 – The Governor General of Canada, Lord Elgin,
signs the Rebellion Losses Bill, outraging Montreal's
English population and triggering the Montreal
Riots.
1859 – British and French engineers break ground
for the Suez Canal.
1861 – American Civil War: The Union Army arrives
in Washington, D.C.
1862 – American Civil War: Forces under Union
Admiral David Farragut demand the surrender of
the Confederate city of New Orleans, Louisiana.
1864 – American Civil War: The Battle of Marks'
Mills.
1898 – Spanish-American War: The United States
declares war on Spain.
1901 – New York becomes the first U.S. state to
require automobile license plates.
Anzac Beach – Australian and New Zealand forces
invade Turkey
1915 – World War I: The Battle of Gallipoli begins—The
invasion of the Turkish Gallipoli Peninsula by
Australian, British, French and New Zealand troops
begins with landings at Anzac Cove and Cape Helles.
1916 – Easter Rebellion: The United Kingdom declares
martial law in Ireland.
1916 – Anzac Day is commemorated for the first
time on the first anniversary of the landing at
Anzac Cove.
1920 – At the San Remo conference, the principal
Allied Powers of World War I adopt a resolution
to determine the allocation of Class "A"
League of Nations mandates for administration
of the former Ottoman-ruled lands of the Middle
East.
1938 – U.S. Supreme Court delivers its opinion
in Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins and overturns
a century of federal common law.
1939 – DC Comics publishes its second major superhero
in Detective Comics #27; he is Batman, one of
the most popular comic book superheroes of all
time.
1943 – The Demyansk Shield for German troops in
commemoration of Demyansk Pocket is instituted.
1944 – The United Negro College Fund is incorporated.
1945 – Elbe Day: United States and Soviet 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 Nazi occupation army surrenders and
leaves Northern Italy after a general partisan
insurrection by the Italian resistance movement;
the puppet fascist regime dissolves and Benito
Mussolini tries to escape. This day is taken as
symbolic of the Liberation of Italy.
1945 – Fifty nations gather in San Francisco,
California to begin the United Nations Conference
on International Organizations.
1945 – The last German troops retreat from Finland's
soil in Lapland, ending the Lapland War. Military
acts of Second World War end in Finland.
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.
1960 – The U.S. Navy submarine USS Triton completes
the first submerged circumnavigation of the globe.
1961 – Robert Noyce is granted a patent for an
integrated circuit.
1965 – Teenage sniper Michael Andrew Clark kills
three and wounds six others shooting from a hilltop
along Highway 101 just south of Santa Maria, California.
1966 – The city of Tashkent is destroyed by a
huge earthquake.
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.
1974 – Carnation Revolution: A leftist military
coup in Portugal overthrows the fascist Estado
Novo regime and establishes a democratic government.
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.
1981 – More than 100 workers are exposed to radiation
during repairs of a nuclear power plant in Tsuruga,
Japan.
1982 – Israel completes its withdrawal from the
Sinai peninsula per the 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.
1986 – Mswati III is crowned King of Swaziland,
succeeding his father Sobhuza II.
1988 – In Israel, John Demjanuk is sentenced to
death for war crimes committed in World War II.
2003 – The Human Genome Project comes to an end
two and a half years earlier than expected.
2005 – The final piece of the Obelisk of Axum
is returned to Ethiopia after being stolen by
the invading Italian army in 1937.
2005 – Bulgaria and Romania sign accession treaties
to join the European Union.
2005 – 107 die in Amagasaki rail crash in Japan.
2007 – Boris Yeltsin's funeral – the first to
be sanctioned by the Russian Orthodox Church for
a head of state since the funeral of Emperor Alexander
III in 1894.
2011 – At least 300 people killed in deadliest
tornado outbreak in the Southern United States
since the 1974 Super Outbreak.
Holidays and observances
ANZAC
Day (Australia, New Zealand)
Administrative Professional's Day
Arbor Day (Germany)
Army Day (North Korea)
Christian Feast Day:
The latest possible date for Easter Sunday, last
in 1943.
Mark the Evangelist
Philo and Agathopodes
Pope Anianus of Alexandria
April 25 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
DNA Day
Flag Day (Faroe Islands)
Freedom Day (Portugal)
Malaria Awareness Day (International)
Military Foundation Day (North Korea)
Red Hat Society Day
Robigalia, celebrated on 25 Aprilis. (Roman Empire)
Sinai's Liberation Day (Egypt)
For details, contact Datacentre
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