September 25

1066 The Battle of Stamford Bridge was fought on September 25, 1066 during which the English repelled Harald Hardrada's army. It was the last significant Scandinavian Viking invasion of Britain. As Normans they achieved a second conquest of England just a few weeks later when William the Duke of Normandy triumphed at the Battle of Hastings.

Battle of Stamford Bridge by Peter Nicolai Arbo.

1237 On September 25, 1237 Henry III of England and Alexander II of Scotland signed the Treaty of York. The two kings affirmed that Northumberland (which at the time also encompassed County Durham), Cumberland, and Westmorland were subject to English sovereignty. The treaty thus established the English-Scottish border, which mostly remains the same today.

1513 The first European to set eyes on the east side of the Pacific was Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa on September 25, 1513. A companion of Cortez, he set eyes on the ocean at Darien on the Isthmus of Panama and exclaimed "Hombre". It was the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan who first named it the Pacific eight years later, having encountered its waters for the first time on a particularly calm and peaceful day.

Núñez de Balboa's travel route to the South Sea, 1513 Wikipedia

1644 Danish astronomer Ole Rømer was born on September 25, 1644 in Arhus, Denmark. Best known for his demonstration in 1676 that light has a finite speed and does not travel instantaneously, in later life he invented the mercury thermometer, and created a temperature scale that divided the measurements between freezing water and boiling water into 60 degrees. Rømer also ran the police force in Copenhagen and fired all the officers because morale was low.

1690 Publick Occurrences Both Forreign and Domestick, the first newspaper to appear in the Americas, was published for the first and only time in Boston on September 25, 1690. The paper contained four 6-by-10-inch pages, but filled only three of them. No second edition was printed because the paper was shut down by the Colonial government four days later.

1790 Peking opera was born on September 25, 1790 when the Four Great Anhui Troupes introduced Anhui opera to Beijing in honor of the Qianlong Emperor's eightieth birthday.  It was originally staged for the court and only made available to the public later.

1824 The Macon, Georgia slave William Craft was born on September 25, 1824. He and Ellen Craft escaped to the North in December 1848 by traveling openly by train and steamboat, arriving in Philadelphia on Christmas Day. Ellen, who was light skinned, dressed as a white male printer with a sling to hide the fact that she could not write and passed as William's slave owner. Eventually, they fled to Liverpool, England. The Crafts published a written account, which reached wide audiences.

Ellen and William Craft

1906 The Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich was born at Podolskaya street in Saint Petersburg, Russia on September 25, 1906. Dmitri's parents came from Siberia. His father was a biologist and engineer, and his mother was a pianist.  Shostakovich is widely regarded as one of the most important composers of the 20th century, known for his symphonies, chamber music, and other classical compositions.

1906 On September 25, 1906, Spanish civil engineer Leonardo Torres y Quevedo publicly demonstrated the Telekino, guiding a boat from the shore. The device consisted of a robot that executed commands transmitted by electromagnetic waves. With the Telekino, Torres y Quevedo laid down modern wireless remote-control operation principles and the event is considered the birth of the remote control.

The Telekino receptor

1915 The British first used poison gas at the Battle of Loos on September 25, 1915. They had expressed outrage at Germany's use of poison gas at the Battle of Ypres in April 1915 but responded by developing their own gas warfare capability. The attempt at the Battle of Loos was a disaster as there was little wind, and the gas either lingered in no man's land or, in places, blew back on the British trenches.

1921 British author, feminist and socialist campaigner Dora Black became Bertrand Russell's second wife on September 25, 1921 at Battersea Town Hall. Dora who was seven months pregnant with the couple's first child, John, wore black during the ceremony. The couple had two children together, John and Kate, but the marriage grew increasingly tenuous, and it reached a breaking point over Dora's adultery with an American journalist. They separated and later divorced in 1935.

Russell with John and Kate

1926 On September 25, 1926, the Ford Motor Company instituted a five-day, 40-hour work week for its automotive factory employees. They were one of the first companies in America to adopt this. The policy was extended to Ford’s office workers the following August.

1929 Lieutenant James H. Doolittle performed the first blind flight from Mitchel Field on Long Island on September 25, 1929 proving that full instrument flying is possible. Doolittle took off, circled, crossed, re-crossed the field, then landed only a short distance away from his starting point while flying under conditions resembling the densest fog.

1956 The first trans-Atlantic telephone cable went into service on September 25, 1956 with an exchange of greetings between London, Ottawa and New York. The new $42 million cable consisted of two lines laid 18 and a half miles apart on the ocean floor.

1962 The Algerian War of Independence was fought between France and the Algerian National Liberation Front from 1954 to 1962, The conflict ended with Algeria gaining its independence and The People's Democratic Republic of Algeria was formally proclaimed on September 25, 1962. Ferhat Abbas was elected President of the provisional government.

1968 The actor and rapper Will Smith was born on September 25, 1968 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Caroline (Bright), a school board administrator, and Willard Carroll Smith, Sr. a refrigeration engineer. Smith first fame as a member of a hip-hop duo under the name The Fresh Prince. He became an actor when he starred on the television show The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air as Will Smith, a teenager from Philadelphia sent to live with his rich relatives in Southern California.

1974 The first ulnar collateral ligament replacement surgery (Tommy John surgery) was performed by Dr. Frank Jobe on Los Angeles Dodgers baseball player Tommy John on September 25, 1974. The operation, which replaced the ligament in the elbow of John's pitching arm with a tendon from his right forearm was a success. John returned to being an effective pitcher playing until 1989.

1976 The rock band U2 was founded by 14-year-old drummer Larry Mullen Jr at Mount Temple Comprehensive School in Dublin, Ireland. He posted a note on his school's notice board, asking for musicians to start a group on September 25, 1976. There were seven boys who went to their first practice including Paul Hewson ("Bono") on lead vocals, David Evans ("the Edge") on guitar and Adam Clayton on bass.

1980 Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham died at age 32 of asphyxiation from vomiting after drinking the equivalent of 40 shots of vodka in one day on September 25, 1980. The band decide to break up instead of replacing him, officially disbanding on December 4, 1980. They never have fully reformed, but the remaining three members have played some shows with Jason Bonham filling in for his father.

1983 When the racing yacht Australia II, captained by John Bertrand, won the America's Cup on September 25, 1983, it ended the longest winning streak in sporting history of 132 years. The trophy was first won by the Yacht "America" in 1851 and had been held by the New York Yacht Club from 1857 (when the syndicate that won the cup donated the trophy to the club).

1991 Former Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong hosted First Flights, a half-hour televised aviation history documentary series. First Flights debuted on September 25, 1991, on A&E Networks and ran for three seasons. Armstrong was a natural choice to host the show, given his expertise in both aviation and spaceflight. He was a test pilot before becoming an astronaut, and he flew the X-15 to a record altitude of over 207,000 feet.

2001 A biscuit taken from the Titanic before her ill-fated maiden voyage fetched £3,525 at an auction in London on September 25, 2001. It was taken from a party held on the Titanic in Southampton by Captain Morris Harvey-Clarke, before it sailed in April 1912. The biscuit, which has a diameter of 6.2 centimeters, was described in the catalog as “in almost perfect condition with signs of moulding”.

2010 According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the largest pumpkin pie ever baked was made in New Bremen, Ohio on September 25, 2010. It weighed 1,678 kg (3,699 lb) and had a diameter of 6 meters (20 feet). It was made by the New Bremen Giant Pumpkin Growers at New Bremen Pumpkinfest in New Bremen, Ohio on September 25, 2010.

2018 The comedian Bill Cosby's career and image were seriously damaged in the mid-2010s by over 60 sexual assault accusations by women, the earliest of which date back decades. He was found guilty of three counts of aggravated indecent assault in April 2018, and sentenced to three to ten years in prison on September 25, 2018. He was released from prison 26 months later, after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned his conviction.

2020 Magawa was an African giant pouched rat who sniffed out more than 70 land mines in Cambodia. On September 25, 2020, he was awarded the PDSA Gold Medal, which is a prestigious honor for animals who have shown exceptional bravery and dedication in their service. He was the first rat to do so.