25

February

Today in History

Historical Events

138
  • Roman emperor Hadrian adopted Antoninus Pius as his son and successor following the death of Hadrian's first adopted son Lucius Aelius.

    Year 138 (CXXXVIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Niger and Camerinus. The denomination 138 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.

628
  • Khosrow II, the last great king of the Sasanian Empire, was overthrown by his son Kavad II.

    Khosrow II, commonly known as Khosrow Parviz, is considered to be the last great Sasanian King of Kings (Shahanshah) of Iran, ruling from 590 to 628, with an interruption of one year.

1705
  • George Frideric Handel's opera Nero premiered in Hamburg.

    George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer well-known for his operas, oratorios, anthems, concerti grossi, and organ concerti.

1843
  • Royal Navy captain Lord George Paulet began a five-month occupation of the Hawaiian Islands.

    The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against France. The modern Royal Navy traces its origins to the English Navy of the early 16th century; the oldest of the UK's armed services, it is consequently known as the Senior Service.

1866
  • Miners in Calaveras County, California, discovered a human skull that was taken to show that humans had existed during the Pliocene, a thesis that was later disproved.

    Calaveras County, officially the County of Calaveras, is a county in both the Gold Country and High Sierra regions of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 45,292. The county seat is San Andreas. Angels Camp is the county's only incorporated city. Calaveras is Spanish for 'skulls'; the county was reportedly named for the remains of Native Americans discovered by the Spanish explorer Captain Gabriel Moraga.

1870
  • Mississippi senator Hiram Rhodes Revels became the first African American to be seated in the U.S. Congress.

    The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress. The Senate and the United States House of Representatives comprise the federal bicameral legislature of the United States. Together, the Senate and the House have the authority under Article One of the U.S. Constitution to pass or defeat federal legislation. The Senate has exclusive power to confirm U.S. presidential appointments to high offices, and approve or reject treaties, and try cases of impeachment brought by the House. The Senate and the House provide a check and balance on the powers of the executive and judicial branches of government.

1933
  • USS Ranger (pictured), the United States Navy's first purpose-built aircraft carrier, was launched.

    USS Ranger (CV-4) was an interwar United States Navy aircraft carrier, the only ship of its class. As a Treaty ship, Ranger was the first U.S. vessel to be designed and built from the keel up as a carrier. She was relatively small, just 730 ft (222.5 m) long and under 15,000 long tons (15,000 t), closer in size and displacement to the first US carrier—Langley—than later ships. An island superstructure was not included in the original design, but was added after completion.

1948
  • Fearful of civil war and Soviet intervention in recent unrest, President Edvard BeneÅ¡ (pictured) ceded control of the government to the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia.

    Edvard Beneš was a Czech politician and statesman who served as the president of Czechoslovakia from 1935 to 1938, and again from 1939 to 1948. During the first six years of his second stint, he led the Czechoslovak government-in-exile during World War II.

1951
  • After being postponed due to World War II, the inaugural Pan American Games opened in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

    The 1951 Pan American Games, officially known as I Pan American Games and commonly known as Buenos Aires 1951, were held in Buenos Aires, Argentina between February 25 and March 9, 1951. The Pan American Games' origins were at the Games of the X Olympiad in Los Angeles, United States, where officials representing the National Olympic Committees of the Americas discussed the staging of an Olympic-style regional athletic competition for the athletes of the Americas.

1956
  • In a speech to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev denounced the personality cult and dictatorship of his predecessor Joseph Stalin.

    On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences was a report by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, made to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on 25 February 1956. Popularly known as the Secret Speech, this is something of a misnomer, as copies of the speech were read out at thousands of meetings of Communist Party and Komsomol organisations across the country. Khrushchev's speech was sharply critical of the rule of the deceased General Secretary and Premier Joseph Stalin, particularly with respect to the purges which had especially marked the last years of the 1930s. Khrushchev charged Stalin with having fostered a leadership cult of personality despite ostensibly maintaining support for the ideals of communism.

1980
  • The first prime minister of independent Suriname, Henck Arron (pictured), was deposed in a military coup led by Dési Bouterse.

    Henck Alphonsus Eugène Arron was a Surinamese politician who served as the first Prime Minister of Suriname after it gained independence in 1975. A member of the National Party of Suriname, he served from 24 December 1973 with the transition government, to 25 February 1980. He was overthrown in a coup d'état by the military, led by Dési Bouterse. Released in 1981 after charges of corruption were dropped, he returned to banking, his previous career. In 1987, Arron was elected as Vice President of Suriname and served until another coup in 1990 overthrew the government.

1986
  • Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos and his wife Imelda were ousted from power by the non-violent People Power Revolution, with Corazon Aquino succeeding as president.

    Ferdinand Emmanuel Edralin Marcos Sr. was a Filipino lawyer, politician, dictator, and kleptocrat who was the tenth president of the Philippines, ruling from 1965 to 1986. Marcos ruled the country under martial law from 1972 to 1981. He enjoyed expanded powers under the 1973 Constitution. He was deposed by a nonviolent revolution in 1986. Marcos described his philosophy as 'constitutional authoritarianism' under his Kilusang Bagong Lipunan. He is widely regarded as the most controversial figure in Filipino history, Marcos's regime was infamous for corruption, extravagance, and brutality.

1994
  • Israeli physician Baruch Goldstein opened fire on Palestinian Muslims praying at the mosque in Hebron's Cave of the Patriarchs, killing 29 people and wounding 125 others.

    Baruch Kopel Goldstein was an American-Israeli mass murderer, religious extremist, and physician who perpetrated the 1994 Cave of the Patriarchs massacre in Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, an incident of Jewish terrorism. Goldstein was a supporter of Kach, a religious Zionist party that the United States, the European Union and other countries designate as a terrorist organization.

2009
  • At their headquarters in Pilkhana, members of the Bangladesh Rifles began a mutiny that resulted in 82 deaths.

    Pilkhana is a para-military cantonment in Dhaka. It is the headquarters of Border Guard Bangladesh, located to the south of Dhanmondi in Dhaka of Bangladesh.

2020
  • Hong Kong–based writer and publisher Gui Minhai, known for writing about Chinese Communist Party politicians, was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment for intelligence violations.

    Gui Minhai, also known as Michael Gui, is a Hong Kong-Swedish book publisher and writer. He is an author of many books related to Chinese politics and Chinese political figures; Gui authored around 200 books during his ten-year career under the pen-name Ah Hai (阿海) and is one of three shareholders of Causeway Bay Books in Hong Kong.