February 25
138 – The Roman emperor
Hadrian adopts
Antoninus Pius, effectively making him his successor.
493 –
Odoacer surrenders
Ravenna after a 3-year siege and agrees to a mediated peace with
Theoderic the Great.
1336 – Four thousand defenders of
Pilėnai commit mass suicide rather than be taken captive by the
Teutonic Knights.
1797 – Colonel
William Tate and his force of 1000–1500 soldiers surrender after the
Last invasion of Britain.
1836 –
Samuel Colt is granted a United States patent for
the Colt revolver.
1866 – Miners in Calaveras County, California, discover what is now called the
Calaveras Skull – human remains that supposedly indicated that man, mastodons, and elephants had co-existed.
1870 –
Hiram Rhodes Revels, a Republican from Mississippi, is sworn into the United States Senate, becoming the first African American ever to sit in the U.S. Congress.
1901 –
J. P. Morgan incorporates the
United States Steel Corporation.
1919 – Oregon places a one cent per U.S. gallon
tax on gasoline, becoming the first U.S. state to levy a gasoline tax.
1928 –
Charles Jenkins Laboratories of Washington, D.C. becomes the first holder of a
broadcast license for television from the Federal Radio Commission.
1933 – The
USS Ranger is launched. It is the first US Navy ship to be designed from the start of construction as an
aircraft carrier.
1939 – The first of 2 1⁄2 million
Anderson air raid shelters appeared in North London.
1956 – In his speech
On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences,
Nikita Khrushchev, leader of the Soviet Union denounces the cult of personality of
Joseph Stalin.
1986 –
People Power Revolution: President of the Philippines
Ferdinand Marcos flees the nation after 20 years of rule;
Corazon Aquino becomes the Philippines' first woman president.
1987 –
Southern Methodist University's football program is the first college football program to receive the
death penalty by the NCAA's Committee on Infractions. It was revealed that athletic officials and school administrators had knowledge of a "
slush fund" used to make illegal payments to the school's football players as far back as 1981.
1991 – Gulf War: An
Iraqi scud missile hits an American military barracks in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia
killing 28 U.S. Army Reservists from Pennsylvania.
1994 –
Mosque of Abraham massacre: In the
Cave of the Patriarchs in the West Bank city of Hebron,
Baruch Goldstein opens fire with an automatic rifle, killing 29 Palestinian worshippers and injuring 125 more before being subdued and beaten to death by survivors.
1995 - At a private party for 1,200 select guests on the closing night of the Frank Sinatra Desert Classic golf tournament,
Frank Sinatra sang before a live audience for the very last time. His closing song was '
The Best is Yet to Come'.
2015 – At least 310 people are killed in
avalanches in northeastern Afghanistan.
2016 – Three people are killed and fourteen others injured in a series of
shootings in the small Kansas cities of Newton and Hesston.
Births
1841 – Pierre-Auguste Renoir
; 1873 – Enrico Caruso♪ ♫; 1888 – John Foster Dulles (Washington Dulles International Airport); 1890 – Myra Hess♪ ♫; 1901 – Zeppo Marx (youngest of the Marx Bros); 1913 – Jim Backus (voice of
Mr. Magoo,
Gilligan's Island); 1917 – Anthony Burgess (author
A Clockwork Orange); 1918 – Bobby Riggs; 1920 – Sun Myung Moon (founded the Unification Church); 1927 – Dr. Ralph Stanley♪ ♫(sang O Death in
O Brother Where Art Thou); 1928 – Larry Gelbart (creator M*A*S*H); 1929 – Tommy Newsom(NBC Orchestra, sub for Doc Severinson; 1932 – Faron Young♪ ♫; 1935 – Sally Jessy Raphael; 1937 – Bob Schieffer; 1940 – Billy Packer; 1943 – George Harrison♪ ♫
(The Beatles, The Traveling Wilburys); 1949 – Ric Flair; 1949 – Jack Handey (
SNL's "Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey"); 1957 – Dennis Diken
(The Smithereens); 1958 – Kurt Rambis; 1961 – Davey Allison
; 1966 – Téa Leoni
; 1966 – Nancy O'Dell; 1971 – Sean Astin (
Rudy, TLOR; 1973 – Julio Iglesias, Jr.; 1975 – Chelsea Handler; 1976 – Rashida Jones
Deaths
1723 – Christopher Wren; 1878 – Townsend Harris; 1899 – Paul Reuter (Reuters News); 1957 – Bugs Moran (mob boss); 1983 – Tennessee Williams; 1987 – James Coco; 1993 – Toy Caldwell♪ ♫(Marshall Tucker Band); 1996 – Haing S. Ngor (
The Killing Fields); 2006 – Darren McGavin (
Kolchak: The Night Stalker, Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer (1957)); 2013 – C. Everett Koop