April 25th
404 BC Admiral Lysander and King Pausanias of Sparta blockade Athens and bring the Peloponnesian War to a successful conclusion.
775 The Battle of Bagrevand puts an end to an Armenian rebellion against the Abbasid Caliphate. Muslim control over Transcaucasia is solidified and its Islamization begins, while several major Armenian nakharar families lose power and their remnants flee to the Byzantine Empire.
799 After mistreatment and disfigurement by the citizens of Rome, pope Leo III flees to the Frankish court of king Charlemagne at Paderborn for protection.
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 A coalition of England, the Netherlands and Portugal is defeated by a Franco-Spanish 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 MexicanAmerican War.
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.
1862 American Civil War: Forces under U.S. Admiral David Farragut demand the surrender of the Confederate city of New Orleans, Louisiana.
1864 American Civil War: The Battle of Marks' Mills.
1882 French and Vietnamese troops clashed in Tonkin, when Commandant Henri Riviθre seized the citadel of Hanoi with a small force of marine infantry.
1898 SpanishAmerican War: The United States declares war on Spain.
1901 New York becomes the first U.S. state to require automobile license plates.
1915 World War I: The Battle of Gallipoli begins: The invasion of the Turkish Gallipoli Peninsula by British, French, Indian, Newfoundland, Australian and New Zealand troops, begins with landings at Anzac Cove and Cape Helles.
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.
1940 Merkiπ, the flag of the Faroe Islands is approved by the British occupation government.
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.
1945 Liberation Day (Italy): 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 is captured after trying to escape. This day was set as a public holiday to celebrate the Liberation of Italy.
1945 United Nations Conference on International Organization: Founding negotiations for the United Nations begin in San Francisco.
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.
1951 Korean War: Assaulting Chinese forces are forced to withdraw after heavy fighting with UN forces, primarily made up of Australian and Canadian troops, at the Battle of Kapyong.
1953 Francis Crick and James Watson publish "Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid" describing the double helix structure of DNA.
1954 The first practical solar cell is publicly demonstrated by Bell Telephone Laboratories.
1959 The Saint Lawrence Seaway, linking the North American Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean, officially opens to shipping.
1960 The United States Navy submarine USS Triton completes the first submerged circumnavigation of the globe.
1961 Robert Noyce is granted a patent for an integrated circuit.
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 authoritarian-conservative 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 at the Tsuruga Nuclear Power Plant in Japan.
1982 Israel completes its withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula per the Camp David Accords.
1983 Cold War: 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 Demjanjuk is sentenced to death for war crimes committed in World War II.
1990 Violeta Chamorro takes office as the President of Nicaragua, the first woman to hold the position.
2001 Michele Alboreto is killed while testing an Audi R8 at the Lausitzring in Germany.
2004 The March for Women's Lives brings between 500,000 and 800,000 protesters, mostly pro-choice, to Washington D.C. to protest the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003, and other restrictions on abortion.
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.
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.
2015 Nearly 9,100 are killed after a massive 7.8 magnitude earthquake strikes Nepal.
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My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
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