July 25

Events

Pre-1600

• 306 - Constantine I is proclaimed Roman emperor by his troops.
• 315 - The Arch of Constantine is completed near the Colosseum in Rome to commemorate Constantine I's victory over Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge.
• 677 - Climax of the Siege of Thessalonica by the Slavs in a three-day assault on the city walls.
• 864 - The Edict of Pistres of Charles the Bald orders defensive measures against the Vikings.
• 918 - Wang Geon becomes King of Goryeo after overthrowing Gung Ye in a coup the previous day
• 1137 - Eleanor of Aquitaine marries Prince Louis, later King Louis VII of France, at the Cathedral of Saint-André in Bordeaux.
• 1139 - Battle of Ourique: The Almoravids, led by Ali ibn Yusuf, are defeated by Prince Afonso Henriques who is proclaimed King of Portugal.
• 1261 - The city of Constantinople is recaptured by Nicaean forces under the command of Alexios Strategopoulos, re-establishing the Byzantine Empire.
• 1278 - The naval Battle of Algeciras takes place in the context of the Spanish Reconquista resulting in a victory for the Emirate of Granada and the Maranid Dynasty over the Kingdom of Castile.
• 1467 - The Battle of Molinella: The first battle in Italy in which firearms are used extensively.
• 1536 - Sebastián de Belalcázar on his search of El Dorado founds the city of Santiago de Cali.
• 1538 - The city of Guayaquil is founded by the Spanish Conquistador Francisco de Orellana and given the name Muy Noble y Muy Leal Ciudad de Santiago de Guayaquil.
• 1547 - Henry II of France is crowned.
• 1554 - The royal wedding of Mary I and Philip II of Spain celebrated at Winchester Cathedral.
• 1567 - Don Diego de Losada founds the city of Santiago de Leon de Caracas, modern-day Caracas, the capital city of Venezuela.
• 1591 - The Duke of Parma is defeated near the Dutch city of Nijmegen by an Anglo-Dutch force led by Maurice of Orange.
• 1593 - Henry IV of France publicly converts from Protestantism to Roman Catholicism.

  1601–1900

• 1603 - James VI and I and Anne of Denmark are crowned in Westminster Abbey.
• 1609 - The English ship Sea Venture, en route to Virginia, is deliberately driven ashore during a storm at Bermuda to prevent its sinking; the survivors go on to found a new colony there.
• 1668 - A magnitude 8.5 earthquake strikes eastern China, killing over 43,000 people.
• 1693 - Ignacio de Maya founds the Real Santiago de las Sabinas, now known as Sabinas Hidalgo, Nuevo León, Mexico.
• 1718 - At the behest of Tsar Peter the Great, the construction of Kadriorg Palace, dedicated to his wife Catherine, begins in Tallinn.
• 1722 - Dummer's War begins along the Maine-Massachusetts border.
• 1755 - British governor Charles Lawrence and the Nova Scotia Council order the deportation of the Acadians.
• 1759 - French and Indian War: In Western New York, British forces capture Fort Niagara from the French, who subsequently abandon Fort Rouillé.
• 1783 - American Revolutionary War: The war's last action, the Siege of Cuddalore, is ended by a preliminary peace agreement.
• 1788 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart completes his Symphony No. 40 in G minor.
• 1792 - The Brunswick Manifesto is issued to the population of Paris promising vengeance if the French royal family is harmed.
• 1797 - Horatio Nelson loses more than 300 men and his right arm during the failed conquest attempt of Tenerife.
• 1799 - Napoleon Bonaparte defeats a numerically superior Ottoman army under Mustafa Pasha at the Battle of Abukir.
• 1814 - War of 1812: An American attack on Canada is repulsed.
• 1824 - Costa Rica annexes Guanacaste from Nicaragua.
• 1835 - James Bowman Lindsay demonstrates a constant electric light at a public meeting in Dundee, Scotland.
• 1837 - The first commercial use of an electrical telegraph is successfully demonstrated in London by William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone.
• 1853 - Joaquin Murrieta, the famous Californio bandit known as the "Robin Hood of El Dorado", is killed.
• 1861 - American Civil War: The United States Congress passes the Crittenden–Johnson Resolution, stating that the war is being fought to preserve the Union and not to end slavery, in the wake of the defeat at the First Battle of Bull Run.
• 1866 - The United States Congress passes legislation authorizing the rank of General of the Army. Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant becomes the first to be promoted to this rank.
• 1868 - The Wyoming Territory is established.
• 1869 - The Japanese daimyōs begin returning their land holdings to the emperor as part of the Meiji Restoration reforms..
• 1894 - The First Sino-Japanese War begins when the Japanese fire upon a Chinese warship.
• 1897 - American author Jack London embarks on a sailing trip to take part in the Klondike's gold rush, from which he wrote his first successful stories.
• 1898 - Spanish–American War: The American invasion of Spanish-held Puerto Rico begins, as United States Army troops under General Nelson A. Miles land and secure the port at Guánica.

  1901–present

• 1908 - Ajinomoto is founded. Kikunae Ikeda of the Tokyo Imperial University discovers that a key ingredient in kombu soup stock is monosodium glutamate, and patents a process for manufacturing it.
• 1909 - Louis Blériot makes the first flight across the English Channel in a heavier-than-air machine from Calais to Dover, England, United Kingdom in 37 minutes.
• 1915 - RFC Captain Lanoe Hawker becomes the first British pursuit aviator to earn the Victoria Cross.
• 1917 - Sir Robert Borden introduces the first income tax in Canada as a "temporary" measure.
• 1925 - Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union is established.
• 1934 - The Nazis assassinate Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss in a failed coup attempt.
• 1940 - General Henri Guisan orders the Swiss Army to resist German invasion and makes surrender illegal.
• 1942 - The Norwegian Manifesto calls for nonviolent resistance to the German occupation.
• 1943 - World War II: Benito Mussolini is forced out of office by the King and is replaced by Pietro Badoglio.
• 1943 - World War II: 136 Greek civilians are murdered by soldiers of the German 1st Mountain Division in the village of Mousiotitsa, Greece.
• 1944 - World War II: Operation Spring near Caen is one of the bloodiest days for the First Canadian Army during the war.
• 1946 - The Crossroads Baker device is the first underwater nuclear weapon test.
• 1956 - Forty-five miles south of Nantucket Island, the Italian ocean liner collides with the in heavy fog and sinks the next day, killing 51.
• 1957 - The Tunisian King Muhammad VIII al-Amin is replaced by President Habib Bourguiba.
• 1958 - The African Regroupment Party holds its first congress in Cotonou.
• 1961 - Cold War: In a speech John F. Kennedy emphasizes that any attack on Berlin is an attack on NATO.
• 1965 - Bob Dylan goes electric at the Newport Folk Festival, signaling a major change in folk and rock music.
• 1969 - Vietnam War: U.S. President Richard Nixon declares the Nixon Doctrine, stating that the United States now expects its Asian allies to take care of their own military defense. This is the start of the "Vietnamization" of the war.
• 1971 - The Sohagpur massacre is perpetrated by the Pakistan Army.
• 1973 - Soviet Mars 5 space probe is launched.
• 1976 - Viking program: Viking 1 takes the famous Face on Mars photo.
• 1978 - Puerto Rican police shoot two nationalists in the Cerro Maravilla murders.
• 1978 - Birth of Louise Joy Brown, the first human to have been born after conception by in vitro fertilisation, or IVF.
• 1979 - In accord with the Egypt–Israel peace treaty, Israel begins its withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula.
• 1983 - Black July: Thirty-seven Tamil political prisoners at the Welikada high security prison in Colombo are massacred by the fellow Sinhalese prisoners.
• 1984 - Salyut 7 cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya becomes the first woman to perform a space walk.
• 1993 - Israel launches a massive attack against Lebanon in what the Israelis call Operation Accountability, and the Lebanese call the Seven-Day War.
• 1993 - The Saint James Church massacre occurs in Kenilworth, Cape Town, South Africa.
• 1994 - Israel and Jordan sign the Washington Declaration, that formally ends the state of war that had existed between the nations since 1948.
• 1995 - A gas bottle explodes in Saint Michel station of line B of the RER. Eight are killed and 80 wounded.
• 1996 - In a military coup in Burundi, Pierre Buyoya deposes Sylvestre Ntibantunganya.
• 2000 - Concorde Air France Flight 4590 crashes outside of Paris shortly after taking off at Charles de Gaulle Airport, killing 113 people.
• 2001 - Phoolan Devi, a serving Member of Parliament, was assassinated by shooting in New Delhi, India.
• 2007 - Pratibha Patil is sworn in as India's first female president.
• 2010 - WikiLeaks publishes classified documents about the War in Afghanistan, one of the largest leaks in U.S. military history.
• 2018 - As-Suwayda attacks: Coordinated attacks occur in Syria.
• 2019 - National extreme heat records set this day in the UK, Belgium, The Netherlands and Germany during the July 2019 European heat wave.

  Births

Pre-1600

• 975 - Thietmar, bishop of Merseburg
• 1016 - Casimir I the Restorer, duke of Poland
• 1109 - Afonso I, king of Portugal
• 1165 - Ibn Arabi, Andalusian Sufi mystic, poet, and philosopher
• 1261 - Arthur II, Duke of Brittany
• 1291 - Hawys Gadarn, Welsh noblewoman
• 1336 - Albert I, Duke of Bavaria
• 1394 - James I, king of Scotland
• 1404 - Philip I, Duke of Brabant
• 1421 - Henry Percy, 3rd Earl of Northumberland, English politician
• 1450 - Jakob Wimpfeling, Renaissance humanist
• 1486 - Albrecht VII, Duke of Mecklenburg
• 1498 - Hernando de Aragón, Archbishop of Zaragoza
• 1532 - Alphonsus Rodriguez, Jesuit lay brother and saint
• 1556 - George Peele, English translator, poet, and dramatist
• 1562 - Katō Kiyomasa, Japanese warlord
• 1573 - Christoph Scheiner, German astronomer and Jesuit
• 1581 - Brian Twyne, English archivist