On This Day: 25 April

ANZAC Day (Australia and New Zealand)

Admiral Lysander and King Pausanias of Sparta blockade Athens, bringing the Peloponnesian War to a successful conclusion		404 BC
Margaret of Anjou, wife of Henry VI, dies		1482
Dutch fleet defeats the Spanish in the Bay of Gibraltar		1607
China's last Ming emperor commits suicide during a peasant rebellion led by Li Zicheng		1644
A convention parliament votes for the restoration of the monarchy		1660
Robinson Crusoe , by Daniel Defoe, first published		1719
The guillotine is erected in Paris; highwayman Nicolas–Jacques Pelletier is its first victim		1792
La Marseillaise is composed by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle		1793
Lord Byron leaves England for the last time		1816
Charles Fremantle arrives off the coast of modern–day Western Australia, in HMS Challenger, prior to declaring the Swan River Colony for the United Kingdom		1829
Charles Dodgson meets Alice Liddell for the first time		1856
Construction of the Suez Canal begins as British and French engineers break ground		1859
Confederate forces surrender to Admiral Farragut at Battle of New Orleans		1862
USA declares war on Spain		1898
New York becomes the first US state to require automobile licence plates		1901
British, French and ANZAC troops land at Gallipoli (Anzac Cove and Cape Helles)		1915
Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg becomes President of Germany		1925
Puccini's Turandot first performed, in Milan		1926
San Francisco Conference (of Allied nations) opens – initiating negotiations for the founding of the United Nations		1945
Geneticists Francis Crick and James Watson publish their model of the structure and function of DNA		1953
The first practical solar cell is demonstrated by Bell Telephone Laboratories		1954
Rocky Marciano, world heavyweight boxing champion, retires undefeated		1956
St. Lawrence Seaway (89 miles long) opened – linking the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean		1959
USS Triton completes the first underwater circumnavigation of the world		1960
Ten blacks shot dead as race relations deteriorate in Mississippi		1960
Copenhagen's Little Mermaid loses its head		1964
Mrs. Dale's Diary ends after 21 years and 54,000 episodes		1969
Nguyen Hue Offensive: North Vietnamese troops force the South Vietnamese to retreat, trapping about 2,500		1972
Portuguese government, President and Prime Minister deposed by a military junta (the Carnation Revolution)		1974
Portugal's first free elections for 50 years; three main non–communist parties win		1975
The West German embassy in Stockholm is blown up; two people are shot		1975
More than 100 workers are exposed to radiation during repairs at the Tsuruga nuclear power plant in Japan		1981
Israel completes its withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula, in compliance with the Camp David Accords		1982
American schoolgirl Samantha Smith is invited to visit the Soviet Union by its leader Yuri Andropov, after he read her letter expressing fears about nuclear war		1983
Pioneer 10 travels beyond the orbit of Pluto		1983
Mswati III is crowned King of Swaziland – succeeding his father, Sobhuza II		1986
Retired Ukrainian–American car worker John Demjanjuk is sentenced to death in Israel, for war crimes committed at Treblinka extermination camp during World War II (when he was known as 'Ivan the Terrible')		1988
Train robber Charles Wilson, 57, shot dead at his villa in Spain		1990
The Hubble Space Telescope is launched from the space shuttle Discovery		1990
Violeta Chamorro becomes the first female President of Nicaragua		1990
Zaire government announces that Angolan troops have invaded its territory		1997
Italian racing driver Michele Alboreto is killed while testing an Audi R8 (a Le Mans Prototype car) at the Lausitzring in Germany		2001
Bees stop play at the Rose Bowl, Southampton, as a swarm settles on an advertising hoarding during Hampshire's game against Leicestershire		2002
Over half a million people join the March for Women's Lives in Washington DC, in protest against the Partial–Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 (and other restrictions on abortion)		2004
The final piece of the Obelisk of Axum is returned to Ethiopia, after being stolen by the invading Italian army in 1937		2005
Brian Sedgemore, a Labour MP for 27 years, defects to the Liberal Democrats in protest at Tony Blair's "lies" over Iraq		2005
Home Secretary Charles Clarke apologises for a Home Office blunder that allowed over 1,000 foreign prisoners to escape possible deportation after their release		2006
Boris Yeltsin's funeral takes place – the first to be sanctioned by the Russian Orthodox Church for a head of state since that of Emperor Alexander III in 1894		2007
Over 9,000 people lose their lives when Nepal is hit by an earthquake of magnitude 7.8		2015

© Haydn Thompson 2019