25 May

240 BC First recorded perihelion passage of Halley’s Comet.

615      Pope Boniface IV (died) (born 550)

1085   Pope Gregory VII (died) (born 1020)

1261    Pope Alexander IV (died) (born 1185)

1458   Mahmud Begada (born), Indian sultan (died 1511)

1521    The Diet of Worms ends when Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, issues the Edict of Worms, declaring Martin Luther an outlaw.

1555    Gemma Frisius (died), Dutch physician, mathematician, and cartographer (born 1508)

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.

1803   Ralph Waldo Emerson (born), American poet and philosopher (died 1882)

1805   William Paley (died), English philosopher (born 1743)

1878   Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic opera H.M.S. Pinafore opens at the Opera Comique in London.

1889   Igor Sikorsky (born), Russian-American aircraft designer, founded Sikorsky Aircraft (died 1972)

1895   The 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.

1897   Gene Tunney (born), American boxer (died 1978)

1898   Bennett Cerf (born), American publisher, co-founded Random House (died 1971)

1921    Hal David (born), American songwriter and composer (died 2012)

1925   Scopes Trial: John T. Scopes is indicted for teaching Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution in Tennessee.

1927   Robert Ludlum (born), American author (died 2001)

1929   Beverly Sills (born), American soprano (died 2007)

1934   Gustav Holst (died), English composer (born 1874)

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   Tom T. Hall (born), American singer-songwriter and guitarist

1943   Jessi Colter (born), American singer-songwriter and pianist

1943   John Palmer (born), English keyboard player (Family, Eclection, and Blossom Toes)

1943   Leslie Uggams (born), American actress and singer

1953   The first public television station in the United States officially begins broadcasting as KUHT from the campus of the University of Houston.

1953   At the Nevada Test Site, the United States conducts their first and only nuclear artillery test.

1955    First ascent of Kangchenjunga 28,128 ft (8,586 m), the third-highest mountain in the world, by a British expedition led by Charles Evans. Joe Brownand George Band reached the summit on May 25, followed by Norman Hardie and Tony Streather the next day.

1961    Apollo program: The 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.

1965   Sonny Boy Williamson II (died), American singer-songwriter and harmonica player (born 1908)

1966   Explorer program: Explorer 32 launches.

1968   Saint Louis Gateway Arch is dedicated.

1969   Glen Drover (born), Canadian guitarist and songwriter (Megadeth, Eidolon, and King Diamond)

1977    Chinese government removes a decade old ban on William Shakespeare’s work, effectively ending the Cultural Revolution started in 1966.

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.

1979   Etan Patz, who is six years old, disappears from the street just two blocks away from his home in New York City, prompting an international search for the child, and causing the U.S. President Ronald Reagan to designate May 25 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.

1984   A. J. Foyt IV (born), American race car driver

1985   Bangladesh is hit by a tropical cyclone and storm surge, which kills approximately 10,000 people.

1986   Hands Across America takes place.

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  Israel withdraws its army from most of the Lebanese territory after 22 years of its first invasion in 1978.

2001   Erik Weihenmayer, 32 years old, of Boulder, Colorado, becomes the first blind person to reach the summit of Mount Everest.

2003  Sloan Wilson (died), American author (born 1920)

2004  Roger Williams Straus, Jr. (died), American publisher, co-founded Farrar, Straus and Giroux Publishing Company (born 1917)

2007  Charles Nelson Reilly (died), American actor, director, and educator (born 1931)

2008  NASA’s Phoenix lander lands in Green Valley region of Mars to search for environments suitable for water and microbial life.

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.

2010   Gabriel Vargas (died), Mexican painter and illustrator (born 1915)

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.

2013   Marshall Lytle (died), American bass player and songwriter (Bill Haley & His Comets and The Jodimars) (born 1933)

Follow me

EO Smith

Interests include biological anthropology, evolution, social behavior, and human behavior. Conducted field research in the Tana River National Primate Reserve, Kenya and on Angaur, Palau, Micronesia, as well as research with captive nonhuman primates at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center and the Institute for Primate Research, National Museums of Kenya.
EO Smith
Follow me

Latest posts by EO Smith (see all)