| YEAR | DAY | EVENT |
| 1308 | Feb 25 | Edward II was crowned King of England. |
| 1336 | Feb 25 | The Knights of the Cross sieged the Pilenai Castle in Samogitia. The defenders burned all their goods and committed suicide. |
| 1418 | Feb 25 | At the Constance church synod the Orthodox Metropolitan of Kiev and Lithuania, Gregory Camblak, proposed a union between the Orthodox and Catholic church. |
| 1536 | Feb 25 | Jacob 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. |
| 1570 | Feb 25 | Pope 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. |
| 1601 | Feb 25 | Robert Devereux (b.1566), 2nd earl of Essex, was beheaded following a conviction of treason. His plan to capture London and the Tower had failed. |
| 1642 | Feb 25 | Dutch settlers slaughtered lower Hudson Valley Indians in New Netherland, North America, who sought refuge from Mohawk attackers. |
| 1707 | Feb 25 | Italian playwright Carlo Goldoni (d.1793) was born in Venice. “He who talks much cannot always talk well.” |
| 1713 | Feb 25 | Frederik I (b.1657), King of Prussia (1701-13), died. |
| 1728 | Feb 25 | Peter II Alekseyevich (1715-1730) was crowned as czar of Russia. |
| 1751 | Feb 25 | The 1st performing monkey exhibited in America was in NYC. |
| 1778 | Feb 25 | Jose Francisco de San Martin (d.1850) was born in Argentina. He liberated Argentina, Chile and Peru. Protector of Peru (1821-1822). |
| 1779 | Feb 25 | Fort 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. |
| 1781 | Feb 25 | American 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. |
| 1791 | Feb 25 | President George Washington signed a bill creating the Bank of the United States. |
| 1793 | Feb 25 | The department heads of the U.S. government met with President Washington at his Mt. Vernon home for the first Cabinet meeting on record. |
| 1803 | Feb 25 | The 1,800 sovereign German states united into 60 states. |
| 1804 | Feb 25 | Thomas Jefferson was nominated for president at the Democratic-Republican caucus. |
| 1815 | Feb 25 | Napoleon left his exile on the Island of Elba, intending to return to France. |
| 1831 | Feb 25 | The Polish army halted the Russian advance into their country at the Battle of Grochow. |
| 1836 | Feb 25 | Samuel Colt patented the first revolving barrel multi-shot firearm. This allowed the shooter to fire 5 or 6 times before reloading. |
| 1837 | Feb 25 | Cheyney 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. |
| 1841 | Feb 25 | Pierre 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). |
| 1850 | Feb 25 | Doro 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. |
| 1856 | Feb 25 | Charles Lang Freer, U.S. art collector, was born. |
| 1859 | Feb 25 | The “insanity plea” was 1st used to prove innocence. |
| 1862 | Feb 25 | The ironclad Monitor was commissioned at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. |
| 1863 | Feb 25 | The 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. |
| 1865 | Feb 25 | General 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. |
| 1870 | Feb 25 | Hiram Revels (Sen-R-MS) was sworn in as the 1st black member of Congress. |
| 1879 | Feb 25 | Congress passed the 1st Timberland Protection Act. |
| 1885 | Feb 25 | US Congress condemned barbed wire around government grounds. |
| 1888 | Feb 25 | John Foster Dulles was born. He served as Secretary of State to President Eisenhower (1953-1959). |
| 1894 | Feb 25 | Meher Baba, spiritual leader, was born. |
| 1899 | Feb 25 | Paul 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.” |
| 1901 | Feb 25 | [Herbert] Zeppo Marx, comedian, actor (Marx Brothers), was born in NYC. |
| 1904 | Feb 25 | J.M. Synge’s play “Riders to the Sea” opened in Dublin. [see Jan 25] |
| 1905 | Feb 25 | Adele Davis, nutritionist, was born. |
| 1908 | Feb 25 | The 1st tunnel under Hudson River (railway tunnel) opened. The McAdoo Tunnel was completed March 8, 1904, but only officially opened on this date. |
| 1910 | Feb 25 | The Dalai Lama fled from the Chinese and took refuge in India. |
| 1911 | Feb 25 | A rare snowstorm hit San Francisco. |
| 1913 | Feb 25 | Jim Backus, actor (Mr. Magoo, Thurston Howell III-Gilligan’s Island), was born in Cleveland. |
| 1914 | Feb 25 | John 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.” |
| 1917 | Feb 25 | Anthony Burgess, English writer (A Clockwork Orange), was born. |
| 1919 | Feb 25 | Oregon introduced the first state tax on gasoline at one cent per gallon, to be used for road construction. |
| 1926 | Feb 25 | Francisco Franco became Generalissimo of Spain. |
| 1928 | Feb 25 | Bell Labs introduced a new device to end the fluttering of the television image. |
| 1928 | Feb 25 | In 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. |
| 1932 | Feb 25 | The 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. |
| 1933 | Feb 25 | The 1st genuine aircraft carrier was christened: USS Ranger. |
| 1937 | Feb 25 | Basia Johnson, maid, was born. She later inherited the Johnson & Johnson fortune. |
| 1937 | Feb 25 | Bob Schieffer, newscaster (CBS Weekend News), was born in Austin, Tx. |
| 1940 | Feb 25 | A 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. |
| 1943 | Feb 25 | George Harrison (d. Nov 29, 2001) of the Beatles was born. |
| 1944 | Feb 25 | U.S. forces destroyed 135 Japanese planes in Marianas and Guam. |
| 1948 | Feb 25 | Communists seized power in Czechoslovakia in a coup d’etat. |
| 1950 | Feb 25 | George Richards Minot (b.1885), physician (Nobel-1934), died. |
| 1952 | Feb 25 | French colonial forces evacuated Hoa Binh in Indochina. |
| 1953 | Feb 25 | General de Gaulle condemned the European Defense Community. |
| 1956 | Feb 25 | Soviet 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.” |
| 1957 | Feb 25 | Nobosuke Kishi (1896-1987) began serving as prime minister of Japan. He continued for 2 terms to Jul 19, 1960. |
| 1961 | Feb 25 | Paul Bikle climbed to record 14,100 meters (8.8 miles) in a glider. |
| 1962 | Feb 25 | Maria 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. |
| 1964 | Feb 25 | Cassius Clay (later Muhammad Ali) became world heavyweight boxing champion by defeating Sonny Liston in Miami Beach. |
| 1969 | Feb 25 | In 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. |
| 1970 | Feb 25 | Mark 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. |
| 1971 | Feb 25 | “Oh, Calcutta” opened at the Belasco Theater. |
| 1973 | Feb 25 | The Stephen Sondheim musical “A Little Night Music” opened at Broadway’s Shubert Theater. |
| 1975 | Feb 25 | Elijah 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. |
| 1976 | Feb 25 | The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states may ban the hiring of illegal aliens. |
| 1980 | Feb 25 | A 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. |
| 1983 | Feb 25 | Tennessee Williams (71), playwright, was found dead in his NYC hotel suite. |
| 1984 | Feb 25 | In Cubatao, Sao Paulo, Brazil, an explosion from a gasoline leak in a pipeline burned a nearby shantytown with than 500 deaths. |
| 1985 | Feb 25 | Edwin Meese III was sworn in as US Attorney General. |
| 1986 | Feb 25 | President 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. |
| 1987 | Feb 25 | US Supreme Court upheld affirmative action with a 5-4 vote. |
| 1988 | Feb 25 | Chicago gave the Cubs baseball team the right to install lights and play up to 18 night games. |
| 1989 | Feb 25 | President Bush left Japan, where he had attended the funeral of Emperor Hirohito, and arrived in China for a three-day visit. |
| 1990 | Feb 25 | Nicaraguans 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. |
| 1991 | Feb 25 | During the Persian Gulf War, 28 Americans were killed when an Iraqi Scud missile hit a U.S. barracks in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. |
| 1992 | Feb 25 | Natalie Cole won seven awards at the 34th annual Grammys, including best album for “Unforgettable.” |
| 1993 | Feb 25 | President Clinton ordered the Pentagon to mount an airdrop of relief supplies into Bosnia-Herzegovina. |
| 1994 | Feb 25 | Jersey Joe Walcott (80), boxer, died. |
| 1995 | Feb 25 | Former 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. |
| 1996 | Feb 25 | In 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. |
| 1997 | Feb 25 | A 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. |
| 1998 | Feb 25 | At 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.” |
| 1999 | Feb 25 | A 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. |
| 2000 | Feb 25 | The US sharply criticized China for a marked deterioration in human rights. |
| 2001 | Feb 25 | The Chinese-language film “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” became the most lucrative foreign movie in US history, but tanked in China. |
| 2002 | Feb 25 | In 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. |
| 2003 | Feb 25 | Chief 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.” |
| 2004 | Feb 25 | The Mel Gibson film “Passion of Christ” premiered on Ash Wednesday. |
| 2005 | Feb 25 | Hall 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. |
| 2006 | Feb 25 | A 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. |
| 2007 | Feb 25 | In 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. |
| 2008 | Feb 25 | In 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. |
| 2009 | Feb 25 | US 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. |
| 2010 | Feb 25 | President 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 |
| 2011 | Feb 25 | President Barack Obama signed an executive order freezing assets held by Gadhafi and four of his children in the United States. |
| 2012 | Feb 25 | In 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. |
| 2013 | Feb 25 | C. Everett Koop (96), former US Surgeon General (1981-1989), died at his home in Hanover, NH. |
| 2014 | Feb 25 | Jim 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.” |
What is your reaction?
Excited
0
Happy
0
In Love
0
Not Sure
0
Silly
0
