January 25 in History

Sir Walter Raleigh 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.

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 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 University of 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.

The Bulgarian National Bank is the 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.

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.

Alexander Graham Bell 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.

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 1924 Winter Olympics, officially known as the I Olympic Winter Games and commonly known as Chamonix 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 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.

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.

The Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Offensive, was the last major German offensive campaign on the Western Front during the Second World War, taking place from 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945. It was referred to by the Germans as Unternehmen Wacht am Rhein and was launched through the densely forested Ardennes region of eastern Belgium and northern Luxembourg. The offensive 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.

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

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.

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.

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 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.

Awon'go Idi Amin Dada Oumee was a Ugandan military officer and politician who served as the third president of Uganda from 1971 until his overthrow in 1979. He rose through military ranks until he became commander of all Ugandan armed forces in 1970. In 1971, he overthrew president Milton Obote, subsequently ruling as a dictator. His administration carried out human rights abuses, including mass killings, and collapsed the Ugandan economy. He was ousted from power in 1979 after launching an unsuccessful war on Tanzania. He lived in exile for the rest of his life.

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

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.

Clementine was a 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.

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.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam was a Tamil militant organization, that was based in northern and eastern Sri Lanka. The LTTE fought 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.

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.

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).