November 5

April 25

387 Saint Augustine of Hippo was baptized, along with his son Adeodatus, on Easter Vigil on April 25, 387 in Milan. Augustine recorded his entrance into the church thus: "And we were baptized and all anxiety for our past life vanished away." Tradition has it that whilst Augustine was being baptised by Saint Ambrose. The two of them improvised the "Te Deum Laudamus" (We Praise Thee O Lord) in alternate verses.

Baptism of St Augustine. Louis de Boulogne II. 1702.

1214 Louis IX of France was born on April 25, 1214 at Poissy, near Paris, the son of Prince Louis the Lion and the dominating, half English Princess Blanche. Tutors of Blanche's choosing taught Louis most of what a king must know—government, Latin, military arts, public speaking and writing. Louis was twelve years old when his father died on November 8, 1226. He was crowned king within the month at Reims cathedral.

1284 Edward II of England was born in Caernarvon, Wales on April 25, 1284 to Edward I and Eleanor of Castile, who died when Edward was five. A few days after his birth, young Edward was presented to the assembled Welsh Chieftains by his Father who declared "Eich Dyn," saying in Welsh "This is your Man,"  starting the custom of the Crown Prince of Wales.His father, a notable military leader, made a point of training young Edward in warfare and statecraft starting in his childhood.

Edward I (left) declaring his son Edward (right) the Prince of Wales (early 14th C)

1475 The Italian preacher Girolamo Savonarola joined the Dominican Order on April 25, 1475 when he knocked on the door of the Convent of San Domenico, of the Order of Friars Preachers in Bologna, and asked to be admitted. Girolamo explained to his father in his farewell letter, he wanted to become a knight of Christ. In 1494 he led a revolt in Florence which expelled the Medicis and established a puritanical republic.

1599 Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector after the English Civil War, was born on April 25, 1599.
He was the only son of a small but well to do landowner, Robert Cromwell, who died in 1617. Oliver's mother Elizabeth Steward provided a simple upbringing for him and his seven sisters.
He was related to Thomas Cromwell, one of Henry VIII's ministers.

A 1656 Samuel Cooper portrait of Cromwell

1603 The Ayutthaya Kingdom was a Siamese kingdom that existed from 1350 to 1767. Naresuan the Great was the king of the Ayutthaya Kingdom from 1590 until his death on April 25, 1605. One of his most famous victories was in the Battle of Nong Sarai, where he defeated the Burmese army in a duel on elephants. This event is still celebrated today as a symbol of Thai strength and unity. 

1644 When Zhu Yuanzhang ascended the throne of China in 1368, it initiated the Ming Dynasty rule over China that would last for three centuries. The Ming dynasty fell on April 25, 1644 during a peasant rebellion led by Li Zicheng. Li's rebels sacked the Ming capital of Beijing and the Chongzhen Emperor hanged himself on a tree in the imperial garden outside the Forbidden City. Li proclaimed himself the Emperor of the short-lived Shun dynasty.

1707 The Battle of Almansa was fought on April 25, 1707 during the War of the Spanish Succession. At Almansa, the Franco–Spanish army under the English mercenary Duke of Berwick soundly defeated the allied forces of Portugal, England, and the Netherlands led by the Earl of Galway, reclaiming most of eastern Spain for the Bourbons. It was probably the only major battle in history in which the English forces were commanded by a Frenchman, the French by an Englishman.

The Battle of Almansa by Ricardo Balaca

1719 In 1719 the novelist and journalist Daniel Defoe decided to write a piece of fictitious journalism based on the true life castaway Andrew Selkirk. The book was titled Robinson Crusoe and Defoe wrote it at 95 Stoke Newington Street. London. It was published on April 25, 1719 and before the end of the year, its first volume had run through four editions. Defoe made his publishers a profit of over £1000 with the immediately successful book.

1792 The first execution by guillotine was performed on highwayman Nicolas Jacques Pelletier at 3.30 in the afternoon on April 25, 1792. He was beheaded in front of what is now the city hall of Paris. Pelletier was instantly decapitated, which did not please the crowd. They felt it was too swift and clinical to provide proper entertainment, as compared to previous execution methods, such as hanging, death-by-sword, or breaking at the wheel.

A replica of the Halifax Gibbet, an early guillotine, or decapitating machine. By Paul Glazzard, 

1800 English poet William Cowper was seized with dropsy in the spring of 1800 and died aged 68 on April 25 of that year. The phrase “God moves in a mysterious way” comes from William Cowper's 1779 poem "Light Shining out of Darkness." The words go “God moves in a mysterious way. His wonders to perform."

1859 The construction of the Suez Canal started on April 25, 1859, when the first excavations were made at Port Said in Egypt. The canal was a joint project between British and French engineers, led by Ferdinand de Lesseps, and it aimed to connect the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea, allowing for a direct shipping route between Europe and Asia. The construction of the canal took ten years and involved the labor of over 1.5 million workers, mostly from Egypt and other parts of North Africa. 

Suez Canal, 1869

1874 Guglielmo Marconi, known for his work on long distance radio transmission, was born into the Italian nobility in Bologna on April 25, 1874. Due to his father's dislike of his immature hobby of Morse code, the 10-year-old Giuseppe set up a laboratory in the attic, among his mother's trays of silkworms. He fiddled around with his early electrical transmitters, making his signals travel further and further. He had no idea they would lead to broadcasting.

1900 Sherlock Holmes Baffled was the first film to feature Conan Doyle's fictional detective. It was a 30-second silent spoof released in the US on April 25, 1900. Sherlock Holmes has been depicted on screen over 255 times, a world record for the most portrayed literary human character in film and TV.


1901 On April 25, 1901 New York became the first U.S. state to require automobile license plates. The new law required that all motor vehicles display a unique identification number on a plate, which could be made of metal or other durable material. This new law was introduced as a measure to regulate the growing number of automobiles on the roads and to increase revenue for the state. 

1928 Buddy, the first Seeing Eye dog for the blind in the US, was presented to Morris S. Frank on April 25, 1928. Morris S. Frank was trained to work with the female German Shepherd at a dog-training school in Switzerland, called Fortunate Fields, and on the streets of nearby Vevey. Frank and Buddy returned to New York City on June 11, 1928, and were together until her death on May 23, 1938; he named her replacement Buddy, as he would all his subsequent guide dogs.


1932 The actor, William Roach, who was born in Nottinghamshire, England, on April 25, 1932, is the world’s longest-serving soap opera star, having debuted as Ken Barlow in episode one of Coronation Street in 1960. Nicknamed the ‘Lothario of the cobbles’, Roach has refused to deny having slept with a thousand women during the swinging sixties.

1953 James D. Watson and Francis Crick first announced to friends on February 28, 1953 that they had determined the chemical structure of DNA; the formal announcement took place on April 25, 1953. On that date their article "Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid" describing the double helix structure of DNA was published in the scientific journal Nature.


1955  On April 25, 1955, the United Nation’s commission on narcotics released a report stating a “definite connection between increased marijuana smoking and that form of entertainment known as bebop and rebop.” This statement reflected the concerns of the time regarding the influence of certain music genres on drug use.

1960 The United States Navy nuclear submarine USS Triton completed the first submerged circumnavigation of the Earth on April 25, 1960. The 30,000 mile journey took 60 days. The mission, known as Operation Sandblast, was a highly classified endeavor that aimed to demonstrate the capabilities of the U.S. Navy's submarine fleet and gather intelligence about Soviet naval activities. 

1997 On April 25, 1997, a major disruption of the Internet occurred due to a faulty router operated by MAI Network Services in Florida. The router accidentally leaked a large portion of its routing table to the Internet, causing a routing black hole. The outage lasted for several hours and affected millions of users around the world. It was the first major Internet blackout and served as a wake-up call for the Internet community.

2007 Boris Yeltsin's funeral was held at the Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow on April 25, 2007. Yeltsin was the first president of the Russian Federation and played a significant role in the country's transition from a socialist state to a democratic one. It was the first to be sanctioned by the Russian Orthodox Church for a head of state since the funeral of Emperor Alexander III in 1894.


2012 "That's Why God Made the Radio" is a song by American rock band The Beach Boys, which was released as a single on April 25, 2012. The song marked the band's first new material in over two decades, and was also the title track of their 29th studio album. The song was premiered on ESPN's Mike and Mike in the Morning show, and it was written by Brian Wilson, Jim Peterik, Joe Thomas, and Larry Millas. 

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