January 25 in History

The 40s ran from January 1, AD 40, to December 31, AD 49. Following the assassination of Caligula, Claudius became Roman emperor in AD 41. In AD 43 he sent Aulus Plautius with four legions across the Channel, initiating the decades-long Roman conquest of Britain. The Trưng sisters' rebellion broke out in the far south of Han China in AD 40, when Vietnamese leader Trưng Trắc and her sister Trưng Nhị rose against Han authority in Jiaozhi, in what is now northern Vietnam. Han China dispatched General Ma Yuan to suppress the rebellion in AD 42. The Han army had suppressed the uprising by AD 43. Christianity reached Egypt with the founding of the Church of Alexandria, whose first patriarch was Mark the Evangelist. James the Great, one of the Twelve Apostles and according to the New Testament, the first of them to be martyred, was killed in AD 44. Claudius expelled Jews from Rome at some point between AD 41 and 53. Scholars explain the measure to his concern with public order in Rome rather than a policy directed against Judaism. A famine struck Judea between AD 44 and 48. Josephus records that Helena of Adiabene provided grain and dried figs to the people of Jerusalem, while her son Izates sent money to the city's leaders. Literary works of this decade include the Histories of Alexander the Great, written by Quintus Curtius Rufus, and essays by Seneca (including De Ira; Ad Marciam, De Consolatione; De Brevitate Vitae; De Consolatione ad Polybium; and Ad Helviam Matrem, De Consolatione).

The Battle of the Zab (Arabic: معركة الزاب), also referred to in scholarly contexts as Battle of the Great Zāb River, took place on January 25, 750, on the banks of the Great Zab in what is now the modern country of Iraq. It spelled the end of the Umayyad Caliphate and the rise of the Abbasid Caliphate, which would last from 750 to 1258.

Edward III (13 November 1312 – 21 June 1377), also known as Edward of Windsor before accession, was King of England from January 1327 until his death in 1377. He is noted for his military success and for restoring royal authority after the disastrous and unorthodox reign of his father, Edward II. Edward III transformed the Kingdom of England into one of the most formidable military powers in Europe. His fifty-year reign is one of the longest in English history and saw vital developments in legislation and government, in particular the evolution of the English Parliament, as well as the ravages of the Black Death. He outlived his eldest son, Edward the Black Prince, and was succeeded by his grandson, Richard II. Edward was crowned at age fourteen after his father was deposed by his mother, Isabella of France, and her lover, Roger Mortimer. At age seventeen, he led a successful coup d'état against Mortimer, the de facto ruler of England, and began his personal reign. After a successful campaign in Scotland, he declared himself rightful heir to the French throne, starting the Hundred Years' War (1337–1453). Following some initial setbacks, this first phase of the war went exceptionally well for England and would become known as the Edwardian War. Victories at Crécy and Poitiers led to the highly favourable Treaty of Brétigny (1360), in which England made territorial gains, and Edward renounced his claim to the French throne. Edward's later years were marked by foreign policy failure and domestic strife, largely as a result of his decreasing activity and poor health. The second phase of the Hundred Years' War began in 1369, leading to the loss of most of Edward's conquests, save for the Pale of Calais, by 1375. Edward was temperamental and thought himself capable of feats such as healing by the royal touch, as some prior English kings did. He was also capable of unusual clemency. He was in many ways a conventional medieval king whose main interest was warfare, but he also had a broad range of non-military interests. Admired in his own time, and for centuries after, he was later denounced as an irresponsible adventurer by Whig historians, but modern historians credit him with significant achievements.

Alfonso II (4 November 1448 – 18 December 1495) was Duke of Calabria and ruled as King of Naples from 25 January 1494 to 23 January 1495. He was a soldier and a patron of Renaissance architecture and the arts. Heir to his father Ferdinand I's Kingdom of Naples, Alfonso held the dukedom of Calabria for most of his life. In the 1480s, Alfonso commanded the Neapolitan forces in Tuscany in 1478–1479. He helped reverse the Ottoman invasion of Otranto in Apulia in 1480–1481, and against the Republic of Venice in 1484. In 1486, Alfonso's repressive conduct towards the Neapolitan nobility prompted a revolt; the violent excesses of suppressing this uprising further discredited Alfonso and King Ferdinand. Under Alfonso's patronage, the city of Naples was remodelled with new churches, straightened roads, and an aqueduct supplying fountains. Alfonso became King of Naples in 1494 on his father's death. Within a year, he was forced by the approaching army of Charles VIII of France to abdicate; he was succeeded by his son Ferdinand II of Naples. Alfonso went into an Olivetan monastery at Mazara del Vallo, on Sicily, where he survived until 18 December 1495.

The accession of the King of France to the royal throne was legitimized by a ceremony performed with the Crown of Charlemagne at the Reims Cathedral. In late medieval and early modern times, the new king did not need to be anointed in order to be recognized as French monarch but ascended upon the previous monarch's death with the proclamation "Le Roi est mort, vive le Roi!" French queens were crowned either together with their husband at Reims or alone at Sainte-Chapelle or the Basilica of Saint-Denis. The most important part of the French ceremony was not the coronation itself, but the Sacre – the anointing or unction of the king by the priest leading the ceremony. The Carolingian king Pepin the Short was anointed in Soissons (752) to legitimize the accession of the new dynasty. A second anointing of Pepin by Pope Stephen II took place at the Basilica of Saint-Denis in 754, the first to be performed by a pope. The unction served as a reminder of the baptism of king Clovis I in Reims by the archbishop, Remigius, in 496/499. The ceremony was transferred to Reims in 816 and was later completed with the use of the Holy Ampulla, found in 869 in the grave of the saint. Since the ampulla, a Roman glass vial containing the balm due to be mixed with chrism, was allegedly brought by the dove of the Holy Spirit, the French monarchs claimed to receive their power by divine right. Out of respect for the supposedly miraculous oil, the king's shirt and the gloves put on after the unction of the hands were burned following the coronation. Exceptionally, the shirt worn by Louis XV was not burned. Instead, it was donated to the King of Portugal, John V, and is today at the National Palace of Mafra, guarded by the Royal and Venerable Confraternity of the Most Blessed Sacrament of Mafra. The coronation regalia, such as the throne and sceptre of Dagobert I or crown and sword of Charlemagne, were kept in the Basilica of Saint-Denis near Paris and the liturgical instruments in Reims like the Holy Ampulla and chalice, where they are still partly preserved as well as in the Louvre and other Parisian museums. The Holy Ampulla was kept in a reliquary in the form of a round gold plaque thickly set with jewels in the center of which was a white enamelled representation of the dove of the Holy Spirit, upright with the wings open and pointing down, of which the Holy Ampulla itself formed the body. The reliquary of the ampulla had a heavy chain by which it could be worn around the neck of the abbot of the Abbey of Saint-Remi (where it was normally kept) when he brought it, walking barefoot at the head of a procession of his monks under a canopy carried by four noblemen on horseback, the Hostages of the Holy Ampulla, from the abbey to the very steps of the high altar of the cathedral, where he turned the relic over to the Archbishop of Rheims for its use in the coronation ritual. All succeeding kings of France were anointed with this same oil – mixed with chrism prior to their coronation.

Henry VIII (28 June 1491 – 28 January 1547) was King of England and Ireland from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry was born in Greenwich as the second son of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York. His elder brother, Arthur, Prince of Wales, was heir apparent and married Catherine of Aragon, a Spanish princess. Arthur died in 1502, and Henry was created Prince of Wales in 1504. He acceded to the throne upon his father's death in 1509, marrying Catherine with a papal dispensation. He was described as an attractive, educated, and accomplished king during the early years of his reign. Henry grew dissatisfied with the marriage to Catherine, appealing to Pope Clement VII for an annulment. Clement refused, and Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer declared the marriage void in the eyes of the Church of England in 1533. Clement objected to Cranmer's verdict and excommunicated Henry from the Catholic Church. Henry then passed the Acts of Supremacy, establishing himself as Supreme Head of the Church of England and thereby relieving his realms from obedience to the pope. He dissolved Catholic monasteries and seized their wealth, contributing to the English Reformation. Considered one of the greatest monarchs in English history, Henry grew more tyrannical, egotistical, lustful, and paranoid by the end of his life. He is known for his six marriages, and especially his long effort to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon so that he could remarry in pursuit of a male heir. He ordered the beheadings of two of his wives, Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard. In his later years, Henry was morbidly obese and immobile, with a gangrenous leg wound contracted from a jousting accident in 1536. He was also said to have suffered from diabetes, oedema, and organ failure. He was buried at St George's Chapel in Windsor Castle and was succeeded by his only surviving son, Edward VI.

São Paulo is the capital and largest city of the state of São Paulo. The largest city in Brazil, it is also the most populous city in South America, the Americas, and in both the Western and Southern Hemispheres. The city exerts international influence in commerce, finance, culture, gastronomy, arts, fashion, technology, entertainment and media, having been listed by UNESCO's Creative Cities Network as a "City of Film" and the title of "World Capital of Gastronomy", and by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network (GaWC) as an alpha global city. It is the largest urban area by population outside Asia and the most populous Portuguese-speaking city in the world. The city is named after Paul the Apostle and people from the capital city are known as paulistanos.

The Battle of Mikatagahara (三方ヶ原の戦い, Mikatagahara no tatakai) took place during the Sengoku period of Japan between Takeda Shingen and Tokugawa Ieyasu in Tōtōmi Province on January 25, 1573. Shingen attacked Ieyasu on the plain of Mikatagahara north of Hamamatsu during his campaign against Oda Nobunaga while seeking a route from Kōfu to Kyoto. The Tokugawa-Oda force was almost totally annihilated by the Takeda after being encircled and many of Ieyasu's retainers were killed in the battle. Ieyasu and his surviving men were forced to retreat before launching a minor counterattack to delay Shingen's march towards Kyoto.

Luanda is the capital and largest city of Angola. It is Angola's primary port, and its major industrial, cultural and urban centre. Located on Angola's northern Atlantic coast, Luanda is Angola's administrative centre, its chief seaport, and also the capital of the Luanda Province. Luanda and its metropolitan area is the most populous Portuguese-speaking national capital in the world and the most populous Lusophone city outside Brazil. In 2024 the population reached more than 8.8 million inhabitants (a third of Angola's population). Among the oldest colonial cities of Africa, Luanda was founded in January 1576 as São Paulo da Assunção de Loanda by Portuguese explorer Paulo Dias de Novais, being occasionally called "Leonda" or "St Paul de Leonda" by non-Portuguese sources. The city served as the centre of the slave trade to Brazil before the institution was prohibited. At the start of the Angolan Civil War in 1975, most of the white Portuguese left as refugees, principally migrating to Portugal. Luanda's population increased greatly from internal refugees fleeing the war, but its infrastructure was inadequate to handle the increase. This also caused the exacerbation of slums, or musseques, around Luanda. In the 21st century, the city has been undergoing a major reconstruction. Many new large developments are taking place that will alter its cityscape significantly. Industries present in the city include the processing of agricultural products, beverage production, textile, cement, new car assembly plants, construction materials, plastics, metallurgy, cigarettes and shoes. The city is also notable as an economic centre for oil, and a refinery is located in the city. Luanda has been ranked as one of the most expensive cities in the world for expatriates. The inhabitants of Luanda are mostly members of the ethnic Ambundu people. In recent decades of the 21st century, the number of ethnic Bakongo and Ovimbundu have also increased. Ethnic Europeans are mainly Portuguese. Luanda was the main host city for the matches of the 2010 African Cup of Nations.

Sir Walter Raleigh (; c. 1553 – 29 October 1618) was an English statesman, soldier, writer and explorer. One of the most notable figures of the Elizabethan era, he played a leading part in English colonisation of North America, suppressed rebellion in Ireland, helped defend England against the Spanish Armada and held political positions under Elizabeth I. Raleigh was born to a landed gentry family of Protestant faith in Devon, the son of Walter Raleigh and Catherine Champernowne, daughter of Sir Philip Champernowne. He was the younger half-brother of Sir Humphrey Gilbert and a cousin of Sir Richard Grenville. Little is known of his early life, though in his late teens he spent some time in France taking part in the religious civil wars. In his 20s he took part in the suppression of rebellion in the colonisation of Ireland; he also participated in the siege of Smerwick. Later, he became a landlord of property in Ireland and mayor of Youghal in east Munster. Raleigh rose rapidly in the favour of Queen Elizabeth I and was knighted in 1585. He was granted a royal patent to explore Virginia, paving the way for future English settlements. In 1591, he secretly married Elizabeth Throckmorton, one of the Queen's ladies-in-waiting, without the Queen's permission, for which he and his wife were sent to the Tower of London. After his release, they retired to his estate at Sherborne, Dorset. In 1594, Raleigh heard of a "City of Gold" in South America and sailed to find it, publishing an exaggerated account of his experiences in a book that contributed to the legend of "El Dorado". After Queen Elizabeth died in 1603, Raleigh was again imprisoned in the Tower, this time for being involved in the Main Plot against King James I, who was not favourably disposed towards him. In 1616, he was released to lead a second expedition in search of El Dorado. During the expedition, men led by his top commander sacked a Spanish outpost, in violation of both the terms of his pardon and the 1604 peace treaty with Spain. Raleigh returned to England and, to appease the Spanish, he was arrested and executed in 1618.

The Apalachee massacre was a series of raids by English colonists from the Province of Carolina and their Muscogee allies against a largely peaceful Apalachee population in northern Spanish Florida which took place in January 1704 during Queen Anne's War. Against limited Spanish and Apalachee resistance, a network of Catholic missions was destroyed by the raiders; most of their population were either killed, captured, fled to larger Spanish and French outposts, or voluntarily joined the English. The only major event of former governor of Carolina James Moore Sr.'s expedition was the Battle of Ayubale, which marked the only large-scale resistance to the raids by the Spanish and Apalachee. Significant numbers of the Apalachee, unhappy with the conditions they lived in under in the Spanish missions, simply abandoned their towns and joined Moore's expedition. They were resettled near the Savannah and Ocmulgee Rivers, where living conditions proved to be only slightly better. Moore's expedition was preceded and followed by other raids targeting Spanish Florida which was principally conducted by English-allied Muscogee. The cumulative effect of these raids, conducted between 1702 and 1709, was the depopulation of Spanish Florida beyond the immediate confines of the colonial settlements of Saint Augustine and Pensacola and the rapid decline of the colony's Indian population.

Shays's Rebellion was an armed uprising in Western Massachusetts and Worcester in response to a debt crisis among the citizenry and in opposition to the state government's increased efforts to collect taxes on both individuals and their trades. The fighting took place in the areas around Springfield during 1786 and 1787. Historically, scholars have argued that the four thousand rebels, called Shaysites, who protested against economic and civil rights injustices by the Massachusetts government were led by Revolutionary War veteran Daniel Shays. By the early 2020s, scholarship has suggested that Shays's role in the protests was significantly exaggerated. In 1787, the protesters marched on the federal Springfield Armory in an unsuccessful attempt to seize its weaponry and overthrow the government. The federal government, severely limited in its prerogatives under the Articles of Confederation, found itself unable to finance troops to put down the rebellion; it was consequently put down by the Massachusetts State Militia under William Shepard, alongside a privately funded local militia led by former Continental Army officer Benjamin Lincoln. The widely-held view had already developed that the Articles of Confederation were untenable and needed amending, with the events of the rebellion serving as further evidence for the later Constitutional Convention. There is continuing debate among scholars as to what extent the rebellion influenced the later drafting and ratification of the Constitution.

The Parliament of Great Britain was formed in May 1707 following the ratification of the Acts of Union by both the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Scotland. The Acts ratified the treaty of Union which created a new unified Kingdom of Great Britain and created the parliament of Great Britain located in the former home of the English parliament in the Palace of Westminster, near the City of London. This lasted nearly a century, until the Acts of Union 1800 merged the separate British and Irish Parliaments into a single Parliament of the United Kingdom with effect from 1 January 1801.

The London Corresponding Society (LCS) was a federation of local reading and debating clubs that in the decade following the French Revolution agitated for the democratic reform of the British Parliament. In contrast to other reform associations of the period, it drew largely upon working men (artisans, tradesmen, and shopkeepers) and was itself organised on a formal democratic basis. At its height of its popularity in late 1795, the Society had upwards of 5,000 subscribing members, and was able to broadcast its demands for universal (male) suffrage and annual parliaments to meetings and rallies attended by tens of thousands of unenfranchised working people. Characterising it as an instrument of French revolutionary subversion, and citing links to the insurrectionist United Irishmen, the government of William Pitt the Younger sought to break the Society, twice charging leading members with complicity in plots to assassinate the King. Measures against the society intensified in the wake of the naval mutinies of 1797, the 1798 Irish Rebellion and growing protest against the continuation of the war with France. In 1799, new legislation suppressed the Society by name, along with the remnants of the United Irishmen and their franchise organisations, United Scotsmen and the United Englishmen, with which the diminishing membership of the LCS had associated.

The University of Virginia (UVA or Virginia) is a public research university located in Charlottesville City and Albemarle County in Virginia, United States. It was founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson and contains his Academical Village, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Its original governing Board of Visitors included three U.S. presidents: Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe, the latter as sitting president of the United States at the time of its foundation. As its first two rectors, presidents Jefferson and Madison played key roles in the university's foundation, with Jefferson designing both the original courses of study and the university's original architecture. The original campus contains President Monroe's former residence and law office, today used as a residential college. Now expanded to 1,135 acres (459 ha) of central campus, the modern university is composed of eight undergraduate and three professional schools: the School of Law, the Darden School of Business, and the School of Medicine. The university has been a member of the Association of American Universities since 1904. The university's leadership, faculty, research staff, and alumni have included several United States presidents, foreign heads of state, Nobel laureates, Pulitzer Prize winners, a Dan David Prize winner, Marshall Scholars, Fulbright Scholars, and 57 Rhodes Scholars—the most of any state university. Its alumni include 31 state governors (including fourteen governors of Virginia) and 33 United States senators. UVA students and alumni have founded companies such as Reddit, Skillshare, VMware, and Space Adventures. Its athletic teams, the Virginia Cavaliers, have twice won the Capital One Cup for overall athletics prowess and compete in NCAA Division I as members of the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Felix Mendelssohn's "Wedding March" in C major, written in 1842, is one of the best known of the pieces from his suite of incidental music to Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream. It is one of the most frequently used wedding marches, generally being played on a church pipe organ.

The Bulgarian National Bank (Bulgarian: Българска народна банка, romanized: Bulgarska narodna banka, IPA: [ˈbɤɫɡɐrskɐ nɐˈrɔdnɐ ˈbaŋkɐ], BNB) is the national central bank for Bulgaria within the Eurosystem. Before the country adopted the euro on 1 January 2026, it was responsible for issuing the former national currency, the lev. Headquartered in Sofia, the bank was established in 1879. It is the 13th-oldest continuously existing central bank in the world. The bank has a key role in the Bulgarian economy. An independent institution responsible for issuing all banknotes and coins in the country, BNB is tasked with safekeeping the government's currency reserves. It is also the sole owner of the Bulgarian Mint. In addition to its monetary role, the BNB is also a financial supervisory authority. In that capacity, it increasingly implements policies set at the European Union level. It has been the national competent authority for Bulgaria within European Banking Supervision since 2020. It is a voting member of the Board of Supervisors of the European Banking Authority (EBA). It is Bulgaria's designated National Resolution Authority and plenary session member of the Single Resolution Board (SRB). It provides the permanent single common representative for Bulgaria in the Supervisory composition of the General Board of the Anti-Money Laundering Authority (AMLA). It is also a member of the European Systemic Risk Board (ESRB).

Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847 – October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman known for his work on the incandescent light bulb, the phonograph, electric power distribution and early motion pictures. The merger of the Edison General Electric Company and the competitor Thomson-Houston Electric Company resulted in the formation of General Electric. Edison registered 1,093 patents in the United States. Edison was born in Milan, Ohio, but grew up in Michigan with little formal schooling. He became deaf as a child and learned through books and tinkering. Edison began working at a young age; as a railroad telegrapher, he spent much of his time inventing improvements to telegraph systems. By the age of 22, he had sold a few of his early inventions and moved to New York City to focus on engineering. He had three children with his first wife, Mary, but Edison was neglectful. She died at 29 years old. Edison had troubled relationships with his children for the rest of his life. With the help of friends, the inventor attracted investment and grew his company. By the age of 29, he owned a telegraph recorder factory in Newark with over one hundred employees. Edison expanded, developing Menlo Park, now considered the first industrial research laboratory. Edison, known as "The Wizard of Menlo Park", drove his staff extremely hard and constantly worked himself and his associates to exhaustion. The inventor also drove up investment and publicity. He rose to international fame with the invention of the phonograph which took many years to turn into a commercial success. He later built a larger research lab in West Orange, New Jersey. In 1878, Edison began working on an electrical lighting system which he hoped would replace the common gas lamp. Going from electrical light bulb to the modern electric grid took decades of invention, investment, and influence. Edison and his colleagues had the opportunity to get enormously wealthy as they designed and built a nation of light bulbs, generators, and electric distribution systems. Competition with Westinghouse's AC system forced Edison to yield and resulted in the creation of General Electric. Edison simultaneously created a mining company, which was never profitable, and he nearly went bankrupt. As his role in the illumination business declined, he established a cement company and began work on a motion picture camera. The motion picture camera went from an invention to the first movie production studio. He traveled around the United States and Europe promoting his many innovations, during which he met Mina, his second wife. They had three children together, and Edison was again neglectful. During their adulthood, he began to take more interest in his sons and they eventually worked for him. Charles Edison took over his father's business when he died. In addition to acute health issues from handling toxic and radioactive chemicals during his various experiments, Thomas faced a lifelong battle against diabetes. He worked vigorously until his death. Following the success of the illumination business, he ran several companies which produced batteries, movies, musical records, and phenol. His last obsession was the search for domestic rubber production.

Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman, better known by her pen name Nellie Bly, was an American journalist who was widely known for her record-breaking trip around the world in 72 days in emulation of Jules Verne's fictional character Phileas Fogg, and for an exposé in which she worked undercover to report on a mental institution from within. She ushered in the era of stunt girl reporting and helped advance a new kind of immersion journalism.

Richard Georg Strauss was a German composer and conductor known for his tone poems and operas. He was a leading figure of the late Romantic and early Modern era.

Alexander Graham Bell ( ; born Alexander Bell; March 3, 1847 – August 2, 1922) was a Scottish-born Canadian-American inventor, scientist, and engineer who is credited with patenting the first practical telephone. He also co-founded the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) in 1885. Bell's father, grandfather, and brother had all been associated with work on elocution and speech, and both his mother and wife were deaf, profoundly influencing Bell's life's work. His research on hearing and speech further led him to experiment with hearing devices, which eventually culminated in his being awarded the first U.S. patent for the telephone, on March 7, 1876. Bell considered his invention an intrusion on his real work as a scientist and refused to have a telephone in his study. Many other inventions marked Bell's later life, including ground-breaking work in optical telecommunications, hydrofoils, and aeronautics. Bell also had a strong influence on the National Geographic Society and its magazine while serving as its second president from 1898 to 1903. For National Geographic, Bell wrote under the pseudonym H. A. Largelamb, an anagram of his name. Beyond his work in engineering, Bell had a deep interest in the emerging science of heredity. His work in this area has been called "the soundest, and most useful study of human heredity proposed in nineteenth-century America ... Bell's most notable contribution to basic science, as distinct from invention."

SS Laurentic was a British transatlantic ocean liner built in Belfast, Ireland, and launched in 1908. She is an early example of a ship whose propulsion combined reciprocating steam engines with a low-pressure steam turbine.

The Ukrainian People's Republic (UPR) was a short-lived state in Eastern Europe. Prior to its proclamation, the Central Council of Ukraine was elected in March 1917 as a result of the February Revolution, and in June declared Ukrainian autonomy within Russia, which was later recognized by the Russian Provisional Government. Following the October Revolution, the Central Council of Ukraine denounced the Bolshevik seizure of power and proclaimed the establishment of the Ukrainian People's Republic in the approximate territory Russian governorates of Kiev, Volhynia, Kharkov, Kherson, Yekaterinoslav, Poltava, Chernigov and Podolia. The republic formally declared its independence from Russia on 22 January 1918.

The Finnish Defence Forces (FDF) (Finnish: Puolustusvoimat; Swedish: Försvarsmakten) are the military of Finland. The Finnish Defence Forces consist of the Finnish Army, the Finnish Navy, and the Finnish Air Force. In wartime, the Finnish Border Guard becomes part of the Finnish Defence Forces. Universal male conscription is in place, under which all mentally and physically capable men serve for 165, 255, or 347 days, from the year they turn 18 until the year they turn 29. Alternative non-military service for men and voluntary service for women is available. Finland's official policy states that a wartime military strength of 280,000 personnel constitutes a sufficient deterrent. The army consists of a highly mobile field army backed up by local defence units. The army defends the national territory and its military strategy employs the use of the heavily forested terrain and numerous lakes to wear down an aggressor, instead of attempting to hold the attacking army on the frontier. Finland's defence budget for 2025 equals approximately €6.5 billion. The voluntary overseas service is highly popular and troops serve around the world in UN, NATO, and EU missions. With an arsenal of 700 howitzers, 700 heavy mortars and 100 multiple rocket launchers, Finland has the largest artillery capability in western Europe. Homeland defence willingness against a superior enemy is at 83%, one of the highest rates in Europe. The air force has 62 F/A-18 combat aircraft from 1995, to be replaced with 64 F-35 aircraft in 2026 by the HX Fighter Program. The Finnish Defence Forces cooperate closely with the Finnish Border Guard. The Finnish Border Guard has its own yearly and long-term investment budget.

The 1924 Winter Olympics, officially known as the I Olympic Winter Games (French: Iers Jeux olympiques d'hiver) and commonly known as Chamonix 1924 (Arpitan: Chamôni 1924), were a winter multi-sport event which was held in 1924 in Chamonix, France. Organized by the French Olympic Committee and held as part of an "International Winter Sports Week", the competitions took place in Chamonix and Haute-Savoie, France, from 25 January to 5 February 1924. Although not initially termed "Winter Olympics", the International Olympic Committee (IOC) decided to retrospectively grant the Chamonix competitions the status of the first Winter Olympic Games at the committee's 26th session on May 6, 1926. The tradition of holding the Winter Olympics in the same year as the Summer Olympics would continue until 1992, after which the current practice of holding a Winter Olympics in the second year after each Summer Olympics began. Although figure skating had been an Olympic event in both London and Antwerp and ice hockey had been an event in Antwerp, winter sports had always been limited by the season. At the 1921 IOC convention in Lausanne, there was a call for equality for winter sports. After much discussion, it was decided that France, host nation for the 1924 Summer Olympics, would hold an "international week of winter sport" in Chamonix. While not one of the official 16 events (nor one of the six sports) during the "International Winter Sports Week", the closing ceremony included Pierre de Coubertin presenting gold medals in "Alpinism" (mountaineering) to the members of the 1922 British Mount Everest expedition, represented in Chamonix by Lt Col Edward Strutt, deputy expedition leader.

The Second Sino-Japanese War was fought between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan and its puppet states between 1937 and 1945, following a period of conflict localized to Manchuria that started in 1931. It is often regarded as the beginning of World War II in Asia, as the wars became heavily intertwined after Japan attacked the United States. It was the largest Asian war in the 20th century.

The Alt Llobregat insurrection was a revolutionary general strike which took place in central Catalonia, in the northeast of Spain, in January 1932. Initially organised as a wildcat strike by miners in Fígols, who were protesting against low wages and poor working conditions, it soon turned into a general revolt and spread throughout the region. Workers seized local institutions, disarmed the police and proclaimed libertarian communism, all without any killing taking place. Within a week, the rebellion was suppressed by the Spanish Army. A subsequent rebellion in Aragon was also suppressed. In the wake of the insurrection, many anarchist activists were imprisoned or deported. The suppression of the insurrection caused a split in the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo, with its radical faction ultimately taking control of the organisation and the moderate faction splitting off to form the Syndicalist Party. Further insurrections were carried out by CNT activists in January and December 1933.

Guiding Light (also known as The Guiding Light before 1975) is an American daytime soap opera. It aired for 57 years on television between June 30, 1952, and September 18, 2009, but it began even earlier as a radio serial on January 19, 1937. With 72 years of radio and television runs, it is the longest-running American soap opera, ahead of General Hospital. When the show debuted on radio in 1937, it centered on Reverend John Ruthledge and people whose lives revolved around him. The "Guiding Light" in the show's title originally referred to the lamp in Ruthledge's study that people used as a sign for them to find his help when needed. When the show transitioned to television in the 1950s, the Bauers, a German immigrant family first introduced in 1948, became the focus of the program. Other core families were introduced over the show's run, including the Norrises in the 1960s; the Marlers and the Spauldings in the 1970s; and the Coopers, the Lewises, and the Reardons in the 1980s. Guiding Light was created by Irna Phillips and Emmons Carlson and began as an NBC Radio serial on January 25, 1937. On June 2, 1947, the series was transferred to CBS Radio, before starting on June 30, 1952, on CBS Television. It continued to be broadcast on radio until June 29, 1956. The series was expanded from 15 minutes to a half-hour during 1968 (and also switched from broadcasting live to pre-taping around this same time), and then to a full hour on November 7, 1977. The series broadcast its 15,000th television episode on September 6, 2006. Although Guiding Light was the longest-scripted program in broadcasting history during the time, CBS canceled the series on April 1, 2009, after many years of declining ratings. The show taped its final scenes on August 11, 2009, and its final episode would air on the network on September 18, 2009.

Pope Pius XII was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of Vatican City from 2 March 1939 until his death on 9 October 1958. Pius reigned as pope during a highly consequential 19 years that included the Second World War, the Holocaust and the beginning of the Cold War.

World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated, with many engaging in total war on an unprecedented scale. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the deaths of 60 to 75 million people, a majority of whom were civilians. Millions died as a result of massacres, starvation, disease, and genocides including the Holocaust. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.

The Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Offensive and referred to by the Germans as Unternehmen Wacht am Rhein, was an offensive campaign on the Western Front during the Second World War, taking place from 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945. It was launched through the densely forested Ardennes region of eastern Belgium and northern Luxembourg and was intended to stop Allied use of the Belgian port of Antwerp and to split the Allied lines, allowing the Germans to encircle and destroy each of the four Allied armies and force the western Allies to negotiate a peace treaty in the Axis powers' favor.

The United Mine Workers of America is a North American labor union best known for representing coal miners. Today, the Union also represents health care workers, truck drivers, manufacturing workers and public employees in the United States and Canada. Although its main focus has always been on workers and their rights, the UMW of today also advocates for better roads, schools, and universal health care. By 2014, coal mining had largely shifted to open pit mines in Wyoming, and there were only 60,000 active coal miners. The UMW was left with 35,000 members, of whom 20,000 were coal miners, chiefly in underground mines in Kentucky and West Virginia. However it was responsible for pensions and medical benefits for 40,000 retired miners, and for 50,000 spouses and dependents.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1 was adopted without a vote on 25 January 1946. The Council called for the Military Staff Committee (MSC) to organize for the first time in London on 1 February 1946.

Thomas Toliver Goldsmith Jr. was an American television pioneer, the co-inventor of the cathode-ray tube amusement device, and a professor of physics at Furman University.

The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the year, each with their own set of rules and award categories. The two events that receive the most media coverage are the Primetime Emmy Awards and the Daytime Emmy Awards, which recognize outstanding work in American primetime and daytime entertainment programming, respectively. Other notable American national Emmy events include the Children's & Family Emmy Awards for children's and family-oriented television programming, the Sports Emmy Awards for sports programming, News and Documentary Emmy Awards for news and documentary shows, and the Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards and the Primetime Engineering Emmy Awards for technological and engineering achievements. Regional Emmy Awards are also presented throughout the country at various times through the year, recognizing excellence in local television. In addition, the International Emmy Awards honor excellence in TV programming produced and initially aired outside the United States.

The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) is a trade association and lobby group representing the interests of commercial and non-commercial over-the-air radio and television broadcasters in the United States. The NAB represents more than 8,300 terrestrial radio and television stations as well as broadcast networks.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy, also known as JFK, was the 35th president of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. He was the youngest person elected president, at 43 years, and the first Catholic president. Kennedy served at the height of the Cold War, and the majority of his foreign policy concerned relations with the Soviet Union and Cuba. A member of the Democratic Party, Kennedy represented Massachusetts in both houses of the United States Congress before his presidency.

Walt Disney Pictures is an American film production company that is a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Studios, a division of Disney Entertainment, which is owned by the Walt Disney Company. Founded on October 16, 1923, the studio is the flagship producer of live-action feature films within the Walt Disney Studios unit and is based at the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California. Animated films produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and Pixar Animation Studios are also released under the studio banner. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures distributes and markets the films produced by Walt Disney Pictures.

Nike, Inc. is an American athletic footwear and apparel corporation headquartered near Beaverton, Oregon. It is the world's largest supplier of athletic shoes and apparel and a major manufacturer of sports equipment, with revenue in excess of US$46 billion in its fiscal year 2022.

The Republic of Vietnam, commonly known as South Vietnam, was a country in Southeast Asia that existed from 1955 to 1975. It first garnered recognition in 1949 as the associated State of Vietnam within the French Union, with its capital at Saigon. Since 1950, it was a member of the Western Bloc during the Cold War. Following the 1954 partition of Vietnam, it became known as South Vietnam and was established as a republic in 1955. Although South Vietnam failed to gain admission into the United Nations as a result of a Soviet veto in 1957, its sovereignty was recognized by 95 countries as of January 1975. It was succeeded by the communist-controlled Republic of South Vietnam in 1975. In 1976, North Vietnam and the Republic of South Vietnam merged to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

The Brazilian Army is the branch of the Brazilian Armed Forces responsible, externally, for defending the country in eminently terrestrial operations and, internally, for guaranteeing law, order and the constitutional branches, subordinating itself, in the Federal Government's structure, to the Ministry of Defense, alongside the Brazilian Navy and Air Force. The Military Police and Military Firefighters Corps are legally designated as reserve and auxiliary forces to the army. Its operational arm is called Land Force. It is the largest army in South America and the largest branch of the Armed Forces of Brazil.

Charles Milles Manson was an American criminal, cult leader, and musician who was the founder of the Manson Family. He gained notoriety for orchestrating the Tate–LaBianca murders, where his followers murdered nine people around Los Angeles in 1969.

Awon'go Idi Amin Dada Oumee was a Ugandan military officer and dictator who served as the third president of Uganda from 1971 until his overthrow in 1979. He gained power after the 1971 Ugandan coup d'état. International observers and human rights groups estimate that between 100,000 and 500,000 people were killed under his regime.

Pope John Paul II was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of Vatican City from 16 October 1978 until his death in 2005. He was the first non-Italian pope since Adrian VI in the 16th century, as well as the third longest-serving pope in history, after St. Peter and Pius IX. In addition to this, he was an important philosopher and theologian of the 20th century.

Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu, better known as Mother Teresa or Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta, was an Albanian-Indian Catholic nun, founder of the Missionaries of Charity and a Catholic saint.

The National Resistance Movement is a political party led by President Yoweri Museveni. It has been the ruling party in Uganda since 1986. The party has ruled Uganda as a authoritarian regime under Museveni.

Avianca Flight 052 was a regularly scheduled flight from Bogotá, Colombia, to New York City, United States, via Medellín, Colombia, that crashed on January 25, 1990, at 21:34 (UTC−05:00). The Boeing 707 flying this route ran out of fuel after a failed attempt to land at John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), causing the aircraft to crash onto a hillside in the small village of Cove Neck, New York, on the north shore of Long Island. Eight of the nine crew members and 65 of the 149 passengers on board were killed. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined that the crash occurred due to the flight crew failing to properly declare a fuel emergency, failure to use an airline operational control dispatch system, inadequate traffic flow management by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and the lack of standardized understandable terminology for pilots and controllers for minimum and emergency fuel states.

On January 25, 1993, outside of CIA Headquarters campus in Langley, Virginia, Pakistani national Mir Aimal Kansi shot and killed two CIA employees in their cars as they were waiting at a stoplight and wounded three others. In a prison interview, Kansi said the shooting was politically motivated: "I was real angry with the policy of the U.S. government in the Middle East, particularly toward the Palestinian people."

Clementine is a partially failed joint space project between the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization and NASA, launched on January 25, 1994. Its objective was to test sensors and spacecraft components in long-term exposure to space and to make scientific observations of both the Moon and the near-Earth asteroid 1620 Geographos.

On January 25, 1995, a team of Norwegian and American scientists launched a Black Brant XII four-stage sounding rocket from the Andøya Rocket Range off the northwestern coast of Norway. The rocket carried scientific equipment to study the aurora borealis over Svalbard, and flew on a high northbound trajectory, which included an air corridor that stretches from Minuteman III nuclear missile silos in North Dakota all the way to Moscow, the capital city of Russia. The rocket eventually reached an altitude of 1,453 kilometers (903 mi), resembling a US Navy submarine-launched Trident missile. Fearing a high-altitude nuclear attack that could blind Russian radar, Russian nuclear forces went on high alert, and the "nuclear briefcase" was taken to Russian president Boris Yeltsin, who then had to decide whether to launch a retaliatory nuclear strike against the United States. Russian observers determined that there was no nuclear attack and no retaliation was ordered.

Billy Bailey was an American convicted murderer who was hanged in Delaware in 1996. He became the third person to be hanged in the United States since 1965, and the first person hanged in Delaware in 50 years. As of 2026, he remains the last person to be lawfully executed by hanging in the United States.

Pope John Paul II was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of Vatican City from 16 October 1978 until his death in 2005. He was the first non-Italian pope since Adrian VI in the 16th century, as well as the third longest-serving pope in history, after St. Peter and Pius IX. In addition to this, he was an important philosopher and theologian of the 20th century.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam was a Tamil militant organization, that was based in northern and eastern Sri Lanka. LTTE sought to create an independent Tamil state called Tamil Eelam in the northeast of the island in response to violent persecution and discriminatory policies against Sri Lankan Tamils by the Sinhalese-dominated Sri Lankan government.

The 2003 invasion of Iraq was the first stage of the Iraq War. The invasion began on 20 March 2003 and lasted just over one month, including 26 days of major combat operations. The invasion was conducted by a United States–led coalition of mainly American, British, Australian, and Polish troops.

Lucha libre is the term for the style of professional wrestling originating in Mexico. Since its introduction to Mexico in the early 20th century, it has developed into a unique form of the genre, characterized by colorful masks, rapid sequences of holds and maneuvers, and high-flying aerial techniques, some of which have been adopted by wrestlers in the United States, Japan, and elsewhere. The wearing of masks has developed special significance, and matches are sometimes contested in which the loser must permanently remove his mask, which is a wager with a high degree of weight attached. Tag team wrestling is especially prevalent in lucha libre, particularly matches with three-member teams, called trios.

Ethiopian Airlines Flight 409 was an international commercial flight scheduled from Beirut to Addis Ababa of a Boeing 737-800 that crashed into the Mediterranean Sea shortly after takeoff from Rafic Hariri International Airport on 25 January 2010, killing all 90 people on board. This was the first fatal crash for Ethiopian Airlines since the hijacking of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961 in 1996.

The following details a chronological summary of the 2011 Egyptian revolution from 25 January until Hosni Mubarak's resignation as president of Egypt on 11 February 2011.

On 25 January 2013, a riot began at Uribana prison in Barquisimeto, Venezuela. Initial reports gave at least 50 people killed and over 120 people injured, and by 27 January a death toll of 61 was reported. Officials on the first day of the riot faulted media for breaking news in advance that the prison would be searched by the military. As the riot continued into a second day, human rights groups faulted overcrowding and conditions in the gang-dominated prison.

The Mamasapano clash was a shootout that took place during a police operation by the Special Action Force (SAF) of the Philippine National Police (PNP) on January 25, 2015, in Tukanalipao, Mamasapano, then-undivided Maguindanao. The operation, codenamed Oplan Exodus, was intended to capture or kill wanted Malaysian terrorist and bomb-maker Zulkifli Abdhir and other Malaysian terrorists or high-ranking members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

Ariane 5 is a retired European heavy-lift space launch vehicle operated by Arianespace for the European Space Agency (ESA). It was launched from the Guiana Space Centre (CSG) in French Guiana. It was used to deliver payloads into geostationary transfer orbit (GTO), low Earth orbit (LEO) or further into space. The launch vehicle had a streak of 82 consecutive successful launches between 9 April 2003 and 12 December 2017. In development since 2014, Ariane 6, a direct successor system was first launched in 2024.

The Brumadinho dam disaster occurred on 25 January 2019 when a tailings dam at the Córrego do Feijão iron ore mine suffered a catastrophic failure. The dam, located 9 kilometres (5.6 mi) east of Brumadinho in Minas Gerais, Brazil, is owned by the mining company Vale, which was also involved in the Mariana dam disaster of 2015. The collapse of the dam released a mudflow that engulfed the mine's headquarters, including a cafeteria during lunchtime, along with houses, farms, inns, and roads downstream. 270 people died as a result of the collapse, of whom 259 were officially confirmed dead, in January 2019, and 11 others were reported as missing. As of January 2022, six people were still missing.