February
25
138 – Roman
emperor Hadrian adopts Antoninus
Pius as his son, effectively making him his successor.
628 – Khosrow II,
the last great Shah of the Sasanian
Empire (Iran), is overthrown by his son Kavadh II.
1336 –
Four thousand defenders of Pilenai commit mass
suicide rather than be taken captive by the Teutonic
Knights.
1705 – George Frideric Handel's
opera Nero premiered
in Hamburg.
1836 – Samuel
Colt is
granted a United States patent for
his revolver firearm.
1843 – Lord George Paulet occupies
the Kingdom of Hawaii in
the name of Great Britain in the Paulet Affair (1843).
1870 – Hiram Rhodes Revels,
a Republican from Mississippi,
is sworn into the United States Senate,
becoming the first African
American ever to sit in Congress.
1875 – Guangxu
Emperor of Qing
dynasty China begins his reign, under Empress Dowager Cixi's
regency.
1912 – Marie-Adélaïde,
the eldest of six daughters of Guillaume IV,
becomes the first reigning Grand Duchess of Luxembourg.
1916 – World
War I: In the Battle
of Verdun, a German unit captures Fort
Douaumont, keystone of the French defences, without a fight.
1918 –
World War I: German forces capture Tallinn to
virtually complete the occupation of
Estonia.
1921 – Georgian capital Tbilisi falls
to the invading Russian forces after
heavy fighting and the Russians declare the Georgian Soviet
Socialist Republic.
1932 – Hitler,
having been stateless for seven years,
obtains German citizenship when he is appointed a Brunswick state
official by Dietrich Klagges,
a fellow Nazi. As a result, Hitler is able to run for Reichspräsident in the 1932
election.
1933 –
Launch of the USS Ranger at Newport News, Virginia.
It is the first purpose-built aircraft
carrier to be commissioned by the US
Navy.
1939 –
As part of British air raid
precautions, the first of 2.5 million Anderson
shelters is constructed in a garden in Islington,
north London.
1941 –
The outlawed Communist Party of the
Netherlands organises a general
strike in German-occupied Amsterdam to
protest against Nazi persecution of Dutch
Jews.
1947 –
The formal abolition of Prussia is
proclaimed by the Allied Control Council,
the Prussian government having already been abolished by the Preußenschlag of
1932.
1947 –
Soviet NKVD forces
in Hungary abduct Béla Kovács—secretary-general of the
majority Independent
Smallholders' Party—and deport him to the USSR in defiance
of Parliament. His arrest is an important turning point in the Communist takeover
of Hungary.
1948 –
In a coup d'état led
by Klement Gottwald, the Communist Party of
Czechoslovakia takes control of government
in Prague to
end the Third Czechoslovak Republic.
1951 –
The first Pan American Games are
officially opened in Buenos
Aires by Argentine President Juan
Perón.
1956 –
In his speech On
the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences, Nikita
Khrushchev, leader of the Soviet
Union, denounces Stalin.
1980 –
The government of Suriname is overthrown by a military coup led
by Dési Bouterse.
1986 – People Power Revolution:
President of the Philippines Ferdinand
Marcos flees the nation after 20 years of rule; Corazon
Aquino becomes the Philippines'
first female president.
1991 –
Disbandment of the Warsaw
Pact at
a meeting of its members in Budapest.
1999 – Alitalia Flight 1553 crashes
at Genoa Cristoforo
Colombo Airport in Genoa, Italy,
killing four.
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