History Events on October 25

The United Kingdom annexes the Transvaal.

#Transvaal_Colony

Benjamin O. Davis Sr. is named the first African American general in the United States Army.

#Benjamin_O._Davis_Sr.

Seljuk Turks defeat German crusaders under Conrad III at the Battle of Dorylaeum.

#Battle_of_Dorylaeum_(1147)

Greek War of Independence: The First Siege of Missolonghi begins.

#First_Siege_of_Missolonghi

Second World War: The final attempt of the Imperial Japanese Navy to win the war climaxes at the Battle of Leyte Gulf.

#Battle_of_Leyte_Gulf

Old Style date of the October Revolution in Russia.

#Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates

War of the Austrian Succession: A British fleet under Admiral Edward Hawke defeats the French at the Second Battle of Cape Finisterre.

#Second_Battle_of_Cape_Finisterre_(1747)

The Battle of Balaclava takes place during the Crimean War. It is soon memorialized in verse as The Charge of the Light Brigade.

#Battle_of_Balaclava

Reconquista: After a siege of four months, crusader knights reconquer Lisbon.

#Siege_of_Lisbon

After 74 days on hunger strike in Brixton Prison, England, the Sinn Féin Lord Mayor of Cork, Terence MacSwiney dies.

#Terence_MacSwiney

Cuban Missile Crisis: Adlai Stevenson shows the United Nations Security Council reconnaissance photographs of Soviet ballistic missiles in Cuba.

#Cuban_Missile_Crisis

The Battle of Guningtou in the Taiwan Strait begins.

#Battle_of_Guningtou

Second World War: Heinrich Himmler orders a crackdown on the Edelweiss Pirates, a loosely organized youth culture in Nazi Germany that had assisted army deserters and others to hide from the Third Reich.

#Edelweiss_Pirates

Second World War: The USS Tang under Richard O'Kane (the top American submarine ace of the war) is sunk by the ship's own malfunctioning torpedo.

#USS_Tang_(SS-306)

The Italian luxury liner SS Principessa Mafalda sinks off the coast of Brazil, killing 314.

#SS_Principessa_Mafalda

Proceedings on the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction conclude.

#Hague_Convention_on_the_Civil_Aspects_of_International_Child_Abduction

A commuter train slams into a school bus in Fox River Grove, Illinois, killing seven students.

#1995_Fox_River_Grove_bus-train_collision

Emperor Leo I acclaims his grandson Leo II as Caesar of the East Roman Empire.

#Leo_I_the_Thracian

Fifty years of Japanese administration of Taiwan formally ends when the Republic of China assumes control.

#Geography_of_Taiwan

Dutch sea-captain Dirk Hartog makes the second recorded landfall by a European on Australian soil, at the later-named Dirk Hartog Island off the West Australian coast.

#Dirk_Hartog

War of 1812: The American frigate, USS United States, commanded by Stephen Decatur, captures the British frigate HMS Macedonian.

#USS_United_States_(1797)

Hundred Years' War: Henry V of England, with his lightly armoured infantry and archers, defeats the heavily armoured French cavalry in the Battle of Agincourt.

#Battle_of_Agincourt

The October 2009 Baghdad bombings kill 155 and wounds at least 721.

After a brief civil war, Denis Sassou Nguesso proclaims himself President of the Republic of the Congo.

The United States and its Caribbean allies invade Grenada, six days after Prime Minister Maurice Bishop and several of his supporters are executed in a coup d'état.

Egypt and Israel accept United Nations Security Council Resolution 339.

The People's Republic of China replaces the Republic of China at the United Nations.

The Zinoviev letter, which Zinoviev himself denied writing, is published in the Daily Mail; the Labour party would later blame this letter for the Conservatives' landslide election win four days later.

The Toronto Stock Exchange is created.

Execution of Saints Crispin and Crispinian during the reign of Diocletian, now the patron saints of leather workers, curriers, and shoemakers.