May 25 - Events

Events

• 567 BC – Servius Tullius, king of Rome, celebrates a triumph for his victory over the Etruscans.
• 240 BC – First recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet.
• 1085 – Alfonso VI of Castile takes Toledo, Spain back from the Moors.
• 1420 – Henry the Navigator is appointed governor of the Order of Christ.
• 1521 – The Diet of Worms ends when Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, issues the Edict of Worms, declaring Martin Luther an outlaw.
• 1659 – Richard Cromwell resigns as Lord Protector of England following the restoration of the Long Parliament, beginning a second brief period of the republican government called the Commonwealth of England.
• 1738 – A treaty between Pennsylvania and Maryland ends the Conojocular War with settlement of a boundary dispute and exchange of prisoners.
• 1798 – United Irishmen Rebellion: The Carnew massacre, Dunlavin massacre and Carlow massacre takes place.
• 1809 – Chuquisaca Revolution: a group of patriots in Chuquisaca (modern day Sucre) revolt against the Spanish Empire, starting the South American Wars of Independence.
• 1810 – May Revolution: citizens of Buenos Aires expel Viceroy Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros during the May week, starting the Argentine War of Independence.
• 1819 – The Argentine Constitution of 1819 is promulgated.
• 1833 – The Chilean Constitution of 1833 is promulgated.
• 1837 – The Rebels of Lower Canada (Quebec) rebel against the British for freedom.
• 1865 – In Mobile, Alabama, 300 are killed when an ordnance depot explodes.
• 1878 – Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera H.M.S. Pinafore opens at the Opera Comique in London.
• 1895 – Playwright, poet, and novelist Oscar Wilde is convicted of "committing acts of gross indecency with other male persons" and sentenced to serve two years in prison.
• 1895 – The Republic of Formosa is formed, with Tang Ching-sung as its president.
• 1914 – The United Kingdom's House of Commons passes the Home Rule Act for devolution in Ireland.
• 1925 – Scopes Trial: John T. Scopes is indicted for teaching Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.
• 1926 – Sholom Schwartzbard assassinates Symon Petliura, the head of the Paris-based government-in-exile of Ukrainian People's Republic.
• 1935 – Jesse Owens of Ohio State University breaks three world records and ties a fourth at the Big Ten Conference Track and Field Championships in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
• 1936 – The Remington Rand strike, led by the American Federation of Labor, begins.
• 1938 – Spanish Civil War: The bombing of Alicante takes place, with 313 deaths.
• 1946 – The parliament of Transjordan makes Abdullah I of Jordan their Emir.
• 1950 – Public Transport: Green Hornet disaster. A Chicago Surface Lines streetcar crashes into a fuel truck, killing 33.
• 1953 – Nuclear testing: At the Nevada Test Site, the United States conduct their first and only nuclear artillery test.
• 1953 – The first public television station in the United States officially begins broadcasting as KUHT from the campus of the University of Houston.
• 1955 – In the United States, a night time F5 tornado strikes the small city of Udall, Kansas, killing 80 and injuring 273. It is the deadliest tornado to ever occur in the state and the 23rd deadliest in the U.S.
• 1955 – First ascent of Kangchenjunga (8,586 m.), the third highest mountain in the world, by a British expedition led by Joe Brown and George Band.
• 1961 – Apollo program: U.S. President John F. Kennedy announces before a special joint session of the Congress his goal to initiate a project to put a "man on the Moon" before the end of the decade.
• 1962 – The Old Bay Line, the last overnight steamboat service in the United States, goes out of business.
• 1963 – In Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the Organisation of African Unity is established.
• 1966 – Explorer program: Explorer 32 launches.
• 1966 – The first prominent dàzìbào during the Cultural Revolution in China is posted at Peking University.
• 1967 – Celtic F.C. from Glasgow, Scotland becomes the first ever Northern European team to win the European Cup; with previous winners being from Spain, Italy and Portugal.
• 1968 – Gateway Arch Saint Louis Gateway Arch is dedicated.
• 1973 – HNS Velos (D-16), while participating in a NATO exercise and in order to protest against the dictatorship in Greece, anchored at Fiumicino, Italy, refusing to return to Greece.
• 1977 – Star Wars (retitled Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope in 1981) is released in theaters, inspiring the Jediism religion and Geek Pride Day holiday.
• 1977 – Chinese government removes a decade old ban on William Shakespeare's work, effectively ending the Cultural Revolution started in 1966.
• 1979 – American Airlines Flight 191: In Chicago, a McDonnell Douglas DC-10 crashes during takeoff at O'Hare International Airport killing 271 on board and two people on the ground.
• 1979 – Six-year-old Etan Patz disappears from the street just two blocks away from his New York City home, prompting an international search for the child, and causing U.S. President Ronald Reagan to designate May 25th as National Missing Children's Day (in 1983).
• 1981 – In Riyadh, the Gulf Cooperation Council is created between Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
• 1982 – HMS Coventry is sunk during the Falklands War.
• 1985 – Bangladesh is hit by a tropical cyclone and storm surge, which kills approximately 10,000 people.
• 1986 – Hands Across America takes place.
• 1997 – A military coup in Sierra Leone replaces President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah with Major Johnny Paul Koromah.
• 1999 – The United States House of Representatives releases the Cox Report which details the People's Republic of China's nuclear espionage against the U.S. over the prior two decades.
• 2000 – Liberation Day of Lebanon. Israel withdraws its army from most of the Lebanese territory after 22 years of its first invasion in 1978.
• 2001 – 32-year-old Erik Weihenmayer, of Boulder, Colorado, becomes the first blind person to reach the summit of Mount Everest.
• 2002 – China Airlines Flight 611 disintegrates in mid-air and crashes into the Taiwan Strait. All 225 people on board are killed.
• 2009 – North Korea allegedly tests its second nuclear device. Following the nuclear test, Pyongyang also conducted several missile tests building tensions in the international community.
• 2011 – Oprah Winfrey airs her last show, ending her twenty five year run of The Oprah Winfrey Show.
• 2012 – The Dragon spacecraft became the first commercial spacecraft to successfully rendezvous with the International Space Station (ISS).