March 25 in History

March 25 spans 54 recorded events across recorded history, from 410 to 2018. Below is a curated digest of the most significant moments tied to this date.

Holidays and observances on March 25

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The Georgian Orthodox Church restores its autocephaly abolished by Imperial Russ

1917 — The Georgian Orthodox Church restores its autocephaly abolished by Imperial Russia in 1811.

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Historical Events 54 events 410 – 2018

More major events on March 25

The featured story and these ranked highlights form a quick summary. Every recorded event remains available in the chronology below.

  1. 1965 Civil rights activists led by Martin Luther King Jr. successfully complete their four-day 50-mile (80 km) march from Selma to the capitol in Montgomery, Alabama. Source
  2. 1776 American Revolutionary War: American Patriots conduct a Raid on Tybee Island, primarily seeking to capture runaway slaves who sought refuge with British forces stationed there. Source

Did you know

In 1917, The Georgian Orthodox Church restores its autocephaly abolished by Imperial Russia in 1811. This featured entry focuses on the immediate decision and its direct historical impact.

Did you know

The Apostolic Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Georgia, commonly known as the Georgian Orthodox Church or the Orthodox Church of Georgia, is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox church in full communion with the other Eastern Orthodox churches. This helps explain why the event mattered beyond the initial announcement.

Did you know

It is Georgia's dominant religious institution, and a majority of Georgian people are members. This clarifies the institutional and public response around the event.

Did you know

The Orthodox Church of Georgia is one of the oldest churches in the world. This shows how the event shaped policy and public communication in the same period.

Did you know

It asserts apostolic foundation, and that its historical roots can be traced to the early and late Christianization of Iberia and Colchis by Andrew the Apostle in the 1st century AD and by Saint Nino in the 4th century AD, respectively. This helps explain why the event mattered beyond the initial announcement.


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Showing all 53 events

410 Southern_Yan

The Southern Yan capital of Guanggu falls to the Jin dynasty general Liu Yu, ending the Southern Yan dynasty.

Yan, known in historiography as the Southern Yan, was a dynastic state of China ruled by the Murong clan of the Xianbei during the era of Sixteen Kingdoms. Its founder Murong De was a son of Murong Huang and brother of Murong Jun and Murong Chui, and therefore was an imperial prince of both the Former Yan and Later Yan dynasties.
421 Venice

Italian city Venice is founded with the dedication of the first church, that of San Giacomo di Rialto on the islet of Rialto.

Venice is a coastal city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the region of Veneto, as well as the Metropolitan City of Venice. It is built on a group of 126 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are linked by 472 bridges.
708

Election of Pope Constantine following the death of Pope Sisinnius.

He would be the last pope to visit Constantinople until 1967.
Pope Constantine (Latin: Constantinus; 664 – 9 April 715) was the bishop of Rome from 25 March 708 to his death on 9 April 715. One of the last popes of the Byzantine Papacy, the defining moment of his pontificate was his 710/711 visit to Constantinople, where he compromised with Justinian II on the Trullan canons of the Quinisext Council. The city's next papal visit occurred in 1967.
717 Theodosius III

Theodosius III resigns the throne to the Byzantine Empire to enter a monastery, allowing Leo III to take the throne and begin the Isaurian dynasty.

Theodosius III (Greek: Θεοδόσιος, romanized: Theodósios) was the Byzantine emperor from c. May 715 to 25 March 717. Before rising to power and seizing the throne of the Byzantine Empire, he was a tax collector in Adramyttium. In 715, the Byzantine navy and the troops of the Opsician Theme, one of the Byzantine provinces, revolted against Emperor Anastasius II (r. 713–715), acclaiming the reluctant Theodosius as emperor. Theodosius led his troops to Chrysopolis and then Constantinople, the capital, seizing the city in November 715. Anastasius did not surrender until several months later, accepting exile in a monastery in return for safety. Many themes viewed Theodosius to be a puppet of the troops of the Opsician Theme, and his legitimacy was denied by the Anatolics and the Armeniacs under their respective strategoi (generals) Leo the Isaurian and Artabasdos. Leo declared himself emperor in the summer of 716 and allied himself with the Umayyad Caliphate, the Islamic empire; Theodosius sought aid from the Bulgarians under Khan Tervel (r. 700–721), setting a firm border at Thrace and ceding the Zagoria region to the Bulgarians, as well as stipulating the payment of tribute to them. Leo then marched his troops to Constantinople, seizing the city of Nicomedia, and capturing many officials, including Theodosius's son, also named Theodosius. With his son in captivity, Theodosius took the advice of Patriarch Germanus and the Byzantine Senate, and negotiated with Leo, agreeing to abdicate and recognize Leo as emperor. Leo entered Constantinople and definitively seized power on 25 March 717, allowing Theodosius and his son to retire to a monastery. Exactly when Theodosius died is uncertain, but it may have been on 24 July 754.
919 Romanos I Lekapenos

Romanos Lekapenos seizes the Boukoleon Palace in Constantinople and becomes regent of the Byzantine emperor Constantine VII.

Romanos I Lakapenos or Lekapenos (Greek: Ῥωμανός Λακαπηνός or Λεκαπηνός, romanized: Rōmanos Lakapēnos or Lekapēnos; c. 870 – 15 June 948), Latinized as Romanus I Lacapenus or Romanus I Lecapenus, was Byzantine emperor from 920 until his deposition in 944, serving as regent for and senior co-ruler of the young Constantine VII.
1000

Fatimid caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah assassinates the eunuch chief minister Barjawan and assumes control of the government.

1000 (M) was a leap year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar, the 1000th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 1000th and last year of the 1st millennium, the 100th and last year of the 10th century, and the 1st year of the 1000s decade. As of the start of 1000, the Gregorian calendar was 5 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which was the dominant calendar of the time.
1065

The Great German Pilgrimage is attacked on Good Friday by Beduin bandits, suffering heavy losses.

The Great German Pilgrimage of 1064–1065 was a large pilgrimage to Jerusalem which took place a generation before the First Crusade.
1221 Robert of Courtenay

Coronation of Robert of Courtenay as Emperor of the Latin Empire.

Robert of Courtenay (1201 - 1228), also known as Robert I, was the Latin emperor of Constantinople from 1221 until his death in 1228. He was a younger son of his predecessors, Peter II of Courtenay and Yolanda of Flanders. After the death of Empress Yolanda in 1219, her eldest son, Marquis Philip II of Namur, renounced the succession to the Latin empire of Constantinople in favor of his brother Robert, who set out to take possession of his distracted inheritance. On the way to his new homeland, Robert stayed in Hungary from autumn 1220 to early 1221, enjoying the hospitality of his brother-in-law Andrew II of Hungary. It is possible that Villard de Honnecourt also belonged to his entourage. Robert and Andrew made political alliance against Theodore Komnenos Doukas, despot of Epirus. Andrew II and his heir Béla escorted Robert until the Bulgarian border. There Robert mediated the wedding between Tsar Ivan Asen II and Andrew's daughter, Anna Maria. Crowned emperor on 25 March 1221, Robert's first loss was Thessalonica in 1224 to Theodore Doukas of Epirus. Worried about the situation of the Latin Empire, Pope Honorius III called for a crusade for the defense of Thessalonica, but the response was ineffective. In the same year, Robert's empire would suffer another defeat to John III Doukas Vatatzes, emperor of Nicaea, at the Battle of Poimanenos. Following this defeat Robert was compelled to make peace with John III, who was confirmed in all his conquests. Robert promised to marry Eudokia, daughter of the late emperor of Nicaea, Theodore I Lascaris and Anna Angelina. He had been betrothed to Eudokia on a former occasion; the circumstances surrounding the failed negotiations are unclear, but George Akropolites states that the arrangement was blocked on religious grounds by the Orthodox Patriarch Manuel Sarantenos: Robert's sister Marie de Courtenay was married to Emperor Theodore I Laskaris. Accordingly, Robert, already Theodore's brother-in-law, could not also be his son-in-law. Regardless, Robert soon repudiated this engagement, and married the Lady of Neuville, already the fiancée of a Burgundian gentleman. Heading a conspiracy, the Burgundian drove Robert from Constantinople, he fled to Rome to seek redress from the pope who convinced him to return to Constantinople, but on his return trip, in early 1228, the emperor died in Morea.
1306 Robert the Bruce

Robert the Bruce becomes King of Scots (Scotland).

Robert I (11 July 1274 – 7 June 1329), popularly known as Robert the Bruce (Scottish Gaelic: Raibeart am Brusach), was King of Scots from 1306 until his death in 1329. Robert led Scotland during the First War of Scottish Independence against England. He fought successfully during his reign to restore Scotland to an independent kingdom and is regarded in Scotland as a national hero. Robert was a fourth-great-grandson of King David I of Scotland, and his grandfather, Robert de Brus, 5th Lord of Annandale, was one of the claimants to the Scottish throne during the "Great Cause". As Earl of Carrick, Robert the Bruce supported his family's claim to the Scottish throne and took part in William Wallace's campaign against Edward I of England. Appointed in 1298 as a Guardian of Scotland alongside his chief rival for the throne, John Comyn of Badenoch, and William Lamberton, Bishop of St Andrews, Robert resigned in 1300 because of his quarrels with Comyn and the apparently imminent restoration of John Balliol to the Scottish throne. After submitting to Edward I in 1302 and returning to "the king's peace", Robert inherited his family's claim to the Scottish throne upon his father's death. Bruce's involvement in John Comyn's murder in February 1306 led to his excommunication by Pope Clement V (although he received absolution from Robert Wishart, Bishop of Glasgow). Bruce moved quickly to seize the throne and was crowned king of Scots on 25 March 1306. Edward I's forces defeated Robert in the Battle of Methven, forcing him to flee into hiding, before re-emerging in 1307 to defeat an English army at Loudoun Hill and wage a highly successful guerrilla war against the English. Robert I defeated his other opponents, destroying their strongholds and devastating their lands, and in 1309 held his first parliament. A series of military victories between 1310 and 1314 won him control of much of Scotland, and at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, Robert defeated a much larger English army under Edward II of England, confirming the re-establishment of an independent Scottish kingdom. The battle marked a significant turning point, with Robert's armies now free to launch devastating raids throughout northern England, while he also expanded the war against England by sending armies to invade Ireland, and appealed to the Irish to rise against Edward II's rule. Despite Bannockburn and the capture of the final English stronghold at Berwick in 1318, Edward II refused to renounce his claim to the overlordship of Scotland. In 1320, the Scottish nobility submitted the Declaration of Arbroath to Pope John XXII, declaring Robert as their rightful monarch and asserting Scotland's status as an independent kingdom. In 1324, the Pope recognised Robert I as king of an independent Scotland, and in 1326, the Franco-Scottish alliance was renewed in the Treaty of Corbeil. In 1327, the English deposed Edward II in favour of his son, Edward III, and peace was concluded between Scotland and England with the Treaty of Edinburgh–Northampton in 1328, by which Edward III renounced all claims to sovereignty over Scotland. Robert I died in June 1329 and was succeeded by his son, David II. Robert's body is buried in Dunfermline Abbey, while his heart was interred in Melrose Abbey, and his internal organs were embalmed and placed in St Serf's Church, Dumbarton.
1409 Council of Pisa

The Council of Pisa convenes, in an attempt to heal the Western Schism.

The Council of Pisa (Latin: Concilium Pisarum; Italian: Concilio di Pisa, also nicknamed the conciliabolo, "secret meeting", by those who considered it illegitimate) was a controversial council held in 1409. It attempted to end the Western Schism by deposing both Benedict XIII (Avignon) and Gregory XII (Rome) for schism and manifest heresy. The College of Cardinals, composed of members from both the Avignon Obedience and the Roman Obedience, who were recognized by each other and by the Council, then elected a third papal claimant, Alexander V, who lived only a few months. He was succeeded by John XXIII.
1410 Yongle Emperor

The Yongle Emperor of Ming China launches the first of his military campaigns against the Mongols, resulting in the fall of the Mongol khan Bunyashiri.

The Yongle Emperor (2 May 1360 – 12 August 1424), personal name Zhu Di, was the third emperor of the Ming dynasty of China, reigning from 1402 to 1424. He was the fourth son of the Hongwu Emperor, the founder of the dynasty. In 1370, Zhu Di was granted the title of Prince of Yan. By 1380, he had relocated to Beiping (present-day Beijing) and was responsible for protecting the northeastern borderlands. In the 1380s and 1390s, he proved himself to be a skilled military leader, gaining popularity among soldiers and achieving success as a statesman. In 1399, he rebelled against his nephew, the Jianwen Emperor, and launched a civil war known as the Jingnan campaign. After three years of intense fighting, he emerged victorious and declared himself emperor in 1402. After ascending the throne, the Yongle Emperor elevated Beiping to the status of a second capital, diminishing the importance of Nanjing. Construction of the new capital between 1407 and 1420 employed hundreds of thousands of workers. He also supervised the reconstruction of the Grand Canal, essential for supplying Beijing and the northern armies. The Emperor strongly supported both Confucianism and Buddhism and sponsored the compilation of the vast Yongle Encyclopedia, employing around two thousand scholars. He also ordered Neo-Confucian texts to be systematized and used as textbooks for training officials. The civil service examinations, held every three years, produced qualified candidates for government service. Unlike his father, he avoided frequent purges, resulting in longer ministerial tenures and a more professional, stable administration. The Emperor made considerable efforts to reinforce the empire's hegemonic position in East Asia through an active foreign policy. Diplomatic missions and military expeditions were dispatched to regions both near and distant, including Manchuria, Korea, Japan, the Philippines, and the Timurid Empire in Central Asia. Maritime expeditions led by the eunuch admiral Zheng He extended even further, reaching the shores of Southeast Asia, India, Persia, and East Africa. The Mongols—including southeastern Uriankhai, eastern Mongols and western Oirats—remained the empire's greatest security threat, prompting the Ming court to alternately support and confront the various groups. The Emperor personally led five campaigns into Mongolia, and his decision to transfer the government from Nanjing to Beijing was driven largely by the need to closely monitor the unstable northern frontier. Although a skilled military leader, his wars were ultimately unsuccessful, as the campaign in Đại Việt lasted until the end of his reign and his Mongolian campaigns failed to secure China's northern border.
1519 Hernán_Cortés

Hernán Cortés, entering province of Tabasco, defeats Tabascan Indians.

Hernán Cortés, 1st Marquis of the Valley of Oaxaca was a Spanish conquistador, military commander, explorer, captain general, and writer who led an expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire and brought large portions of what is now mainland Mexico under the rule of the King of Castile in the early 16th century. Cortés was part of the generation of Spanish explorers and conquistadors who began the first phase of the Spanish colonization of the Americas.
1576

Jerome Savage takes out a sub-lease to start the Newington Butts Theatre outside London.

The Newington Butts Theatre was one of the earliest Elizabethan theatres, possibly predating even The Theatre of 1576 and the Curtain Theatre, which are usually regarded as the first playhouses built around London. William Ingram believes it was probably the first of the three to begin construction, and may have been the first completed.
1584 Walter_Raleigh

Sir Walter Raleigh is granted a patent to colonize Virginia.

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.
1655 Saturn

Saturn's largest moon, Titan, is discovered by Christiaan Huygens.

Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun, and is the second largest planet in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant, with an average radius of about 9 times that of Earth. It has an eighth of the average density of Earth, but is over 95 times more massive. Even though Saturn is almost as big as Jupiter, it has less than a third of its mass. Saturn orbits the Sun at a distance of 9.59 AU (1,434 million km), with an orbital period of 29.45 years.
1708 Fife_Ness

A French fleet anchors nears Fife Ness as part of the planned French invasion of Britain.

Fife Ness is a headland forming the most eastern point in Fife, Scotland. Anciently the area was called Muck Ross, which is a corruption of the Scottish Gaelic Muc-Rois meaning "Headland of the Pigs". It is situated in the area of Fife known as the East Neuk, and forms the muzzle of the dog-like outline of the latter when viewed on a map. Ness is a Scots word meaning "headland".
1725

Bach's chorale cantata "Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern, BWV 1", is first performed on the Feast of the Annunciation, coinciding with Palm Sunday.

There are 52 chorale cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach surviving in at least one complete version. Around 40 of these were composed during his second year as Thomaskantor in Leipzig, which started after Trinity Sunday 4 June 1724, and form the backbone of his chorale cantata cycle. The eldest known cantata by Bach, an early version of Christ lag in Todes Banden, BWV 4, presumably written in 1707, was a chorale cantata. The last chorale cantata he wrote in his second year in Leipzig was Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern, BWV 1, first performed on Palm Sunday, 25 March 1725. In the ten years after that he wrote at least a dozen further chorale cantatas and other cantatas that were added to his chorale cantata cycle.
1770 Daskalogiannis

Daskalogiannis leads the people of Sfakia in the first Greek uprising against the Ottoman rule

Ioannis Vlachos, better known as Daskalogiannis, was a wealthy shipbuilder and shipowner who led a Cretan revolt against Ottoman rule in the 18th century.
1776 American Revolutionary War

American Revolutionary War: American Patriots conduct a Raid on Tybee Island, primarily seeking to capture runaway slaves who sought refuge with British forces stationed there.

The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence or simply the American Revolution, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which American Patriot forces organized as the Continental Army and, commanded by George Washington, defeated the British Army. The conflict was fought in North America, the Caribbean, and the Atlantic Ocean. The war's outcome seemed uncertain for most of the war, but Washington and the Continental Army's decisive victory in the Siege of Yorktown in 1781 led King George III and the Kingdom of Great Britain to negotiate an end to the war. In 1783, in the Treaty of Paris, the British monarchy acknowledged the independence of the Thirteen Colonies, leading to the establishment of the United States as an independent and sovereign nation. In 1763, after the British Empire gained dominance in North America following its victory over the French in the Seven Years' War, tensions and disputes began escalating between the British and the Thirteen Colonies, especially following passage of the Stamp and Townshend Acts. The British Army responded by seeking to occupy Boston militarily, leading to the Boston Massacre on March 5, 1770. In mid-1774, with tensions escalating even further between the British Army and the colonies, the British Parliament imposed the Intolerable Acts, an attempt to disarm Americans, leading to the Battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775, the first battles of the Revolutionary War. In June 1775, the Second Continental Congress voted to incorporate colonial-based Patriot militias into a central military, the Continental Army, and unanimously appointed Washington its commander-in-chief. Two months later, in August 1775, George III declared the colonies to be in a state of rebellion. In July 1776, the Second Continental Congress formalized the war, passing the Lee Resolution on July 2, and, two days later, unanimously adopting the Declaration of Independence, on July 4. In March 1776, in an early win for the newly-formed Continental Army under Washington's command, following a successful siege of Boston, the Continental Army successfully drove the British Army out of Boston. British commander in chief William Howe responded by launching the New York and New Jersey campaign, which resulted in Howe's capture of New York City in November. Washington responded by clandestinely crossing the Delaware River and winning small but significant victories at Trenton and Princeton. In the summer of 1777, as Howe was poised to capture Philadelphia, the Continental Congress fled to Baltimore. In October 1777, a separate northern British force under the command of John Burgoyne was forced to surrender at Saratoga in an American victory that proved crucial in convincing France and Spain that an independent United States was a viable possibility. France signed a commercial agreement with the revolutionaries, followed by a Treaty of Alliance in February 1778. In 1779, the Sullivan Expedition undertook a scorched earth campaign against British-allied factions of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy (also Iroquois). Native American raids on the American frontier, however, continued to be a problem. Also, in 1779, Spain allied with France against Great Britain in the Treaty of Aranjuez, though Spain did not formally ally with the Americans. Howe's replacement Henry Clinton intended to take the war against the Americans into the Southern Colonies. Despite some initial success, British General Cornwallis was besieged by a Franco-American army in Yorktown, Virginia, in September and October 1781. The French navy cut off Cornwallis's escape and he was forced to surrender in October. The British wars with France and Spain continued for another two years, but fighting largely ceased in North America. In the Treaty of Paris, signed on September 3, 1783, Great Britain acknowledged the sovereignty and independence of the United States, bringing the American Revolutionary War to an end. The Treaties of Versailles resolved Great Britain's conflicts with France and Spain, and forced Great Britain to cede Tobago, Senegal, and small territories in India to France, and Menorca, West Florida, and East Florida to Spain.
1802 Treaty of Amiens

The Treaty of Amiens is signed as a "Definitive Treaty of Peace" between France and the United Kingdom.

The Treaty of Amiens (French: la paix d'Amiens, lit. 'the peace of Amiens') temporarily ended hostilities between France, the Spanish Empire, and the United Kingdom at the end of the War of the Second Coalition. It marked the end of the French Revolutionary Wars; after a short peace it set the stage for the Napoleonic Wars. Britain gave up most of its recent conquests; France was to evacuate Naples and Egypt. Britain retained Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and Trinidad. It was signed in the Hôtel de Ville (City Hall) of Amiens on 25 March 1802 (4 Germinal X in the French Revolutionary calendar) by Joseph Bonaparte and Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis as a "Definitive Treaty of Peace". The consequent peace lasted only one year (18 May 1803) and was the only period of general peace in Europe between 1793 and 1814. Under the treaty, Britain recognised the French Republic. Together with the Treaty of Lunéville (1801), the Treaty of Amiens marked the end of the Second Coalition, which had waged war against Revolutionary France since its 1798 invasion of Egypt.
1807 Swansea and Mumbles Railway

The Swansea and Mumbles Railway, then known as the Oystermouth Railway, becomes the first passenger-carrying railway in the world.

The Swansea and Mumbles Railway was the world's first passenger railway, located in Swansea, Wales, United Kingdom. Originally built under an act of Parliament, the Oystermouth Railway or Tramroad Act 1804, to move limestone from the quarries of Mumbles to Swansea and to the markets beyond, it carried the world's first fare-paying railway passengers under an agreement effective from 25 March 1807. It later moved from horse power to steam locomotion, and was finally converted to electric power, using the largest tram cars ever built for service in Britain, before closing in January 1960, in favour of motor buses. At the time of the railway's closure, it was claimed to have been the world's longest serving railway, although this distinction has to be qualified because other railways which were used solely for goods traffic (e.g. the Middleton Railway in Leeds, Yorkshire, dating from 1758) had been operating for longer.
1811 Percy Bysshe Shelley

Percy Bysshe Shelley is expelled from the University of Oxford for publishing the pamphlet The Necessity of Atheism.

Percy Bysshe Shelley ( BISH; 4 August 1792 – 8 July 1822) was an English writer who is considered one of the major English Romantic poets. A radical in his poetry as well as in his political and social views, Shelley did not achieve fame during his lifetime, but recognition of his achievements in poetry grew steadily following his death, and he became an important influence on subsequent generations of poets, including Robert Browning, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Thomas Hardy, and W. B. Yeats. American literary critic Harold Bloom describes him as "a superb craftsman, a lyric poet without rival, and surely one of the most advanced sceptical intellects ever to write a poem." Shelley's reputation fluctuated during the 20th century, but since the 1960s he has achieved increasing critical acclaim for the sweeping momentum of his poetic imagery, his mastery of genres and verse forms, and the complex interplay of sceptical, idealist, and materialist ideas in his work. Among his best-known poetic works are the long poems Alastor, or The Spirit of Solitude (1816), Julian and Maddalo (1818-19), The Mask of Anarchy (1819), Adonais (1821) and The Triumph of Life (1822); the short poems "Ozymandias" (1818), "Ode to the West Wind" (1819) and "To a Skylark" (1820); and the verse dramas The Cenci (1819), Prometheus Unbound (1820) and Hellas (1822). Shelley also wrote prose fiction and a quantity of essays on political, social, and philosophical issues. Much of this poetry and prose was not published in his lifetime, or only published in expurgated form, due to the risk of prosecution for political and religious libel. From the 1820s, his poems and political and ethical writings became popular in Owenist, Chartist, and radical political circles, and later drew admirers as diverse as Karl Marx, Mahatma Gandhi, and George Bernard Shaw. Shelley's life was marked by family crises, ill health, and a backlash against his avowed atheism, political views, and defiance of social conventions. He went into permanent self-exile in Italy in 1818 and over the next four years produced what Zachary Leader and Michael O'Neill call "some of the finest poetry of the Romantic period". His second wife, Mary Shelley, was the author of Frankenstein. He died in a boating accident in 1822 at age 29.
1821 Greek War of Independence

Greek War of Independence: Traditional date of the start of the Greek War of Independence.

The war had actually begun on 23 February 1821 (Julian calendar).
The Greek War of Independence, also known as the Greek Revolution or the Greek Revolution of 1821, was a successful war of independence fought by Greek revolutionaries against the Ottoman Empire from 1821 to 1829. In 1826, the Greeks were assisted by the British Empire, the Kingdom of France, and the Russian Empire, while the Ottomans were aided by their vassals, especially by the Eyalet of Egypt. The war led to the formation of modern Greece, which in subsequent years would be expanded to its current size. The revolution is commemorated by Greeks in Greece and the Greek diaspora on 25 March, as Independence Day. All Greek territory, except the Ionian Islands, came under Ottoman rule in the 15th century, in the decades surrounding the Fall of Constantinople. During the following centuries, there were sporadic but unsuccessful Greek uprisings against Ottoman rule. In 1814, a secret organization called the Filiki Eteria (Society of Friends) was founded by Nikolaos Skoufas, Emmanuil Xanthos, and Athanasios Tsakalov with the aim of liberating Greece. It planned to launch revolts in the Peloponnese, the Danubian Principalities, and Constantinople. The insurrection was planned for 25 March 1821, the Orthodox Christian Feast of the Annunciation. However, the plans were discovered by the Ottoman authorities, forcing it to start earlier. The first revolt began on 21 February 1821 in the Danubian Principalities, but it was soon put down by the Ottomans. These events urged Greeks in the Peloponnese into action and on 17 March 1821, the Maniots were first to declare war. In September 1821, the Greeks, under the leadership of Theodoros Kolokotronis, captured Tripolitsa. Revolts in Crete, Macedonia, and Central Greece broke out, but were suppressed. Greek fleets achieved success against the Ottoman navy in the Aegean Sea and prevented Ottoman reinforcements from arriving by sea. Tensions developed among Greek factions, leading to two consecutive civil wars. The Ottoman Sultan called in Muhammad Ali of Egypt, who agreed to send his son, Ibrahim Pasha, to Greece with an army to suppress the revolt in return for territorial gains. Ibrahim landed in the Peloponnese in February 1825 and brought most of the peninsula under Egyptian control by the end of that year. Though an Ottoman–Egyptian invasion of Mani failed, Athens fell, and revolutionary morale decreased. The three great powers—Russia, Britain, and France—decided to intervene, sending their naval squadrons to Greece in 1827. They destroyed the Ottoman–Egyptian fleet at the Battle of Navarino, and turned the tide in favor of the revolutionaries. In 1828, the Egyptian army withdrew under pressure from a French expeditionary force. The Ottoman garrisons in the Peloponnese surrendered and the Greek revolutionaries retook central Greece. The Ottoman Empire declared war on Russia allowing for the Russian army to move into the Balkans. This forced the Ottomans to accept Greek autonomy in the Treaty of Adrianople and semi-autonomy for Serbia and the Romanian principalities. After nine years of war, Greece was recognized as an independent state under the London Protocol of February 1830. Further negotiations in 1832 led to the London Conference and the Treaty of Constantinople, which defined the final borders of the new state and established Prince Otto of Bavaria as the first king of Greece. The slogan of the revolution, Eleftheria i thanatos 'Freedom or death', became Greece's national motto.
1845 New_Zealand_Army

New Zealand Legislative Council pass the first Militia Act constituting the New Zealand Army.

The New Zealand Army is the principal land warfare force of New Zealand, a component of the New Zealand Defence Force alongside the Royal New Zealand Navy and the Royal New Zealand Air Force.
1865 American Civil War

American Civil War: In Virginia during the Siege of Petersburg, Confederate forces temporarily capture Fort Stedman from the Union before being repulsed.

The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), which was formed in 1861 by states that had seceded from the Union to preserve slavery in the United States. The South saw slavery as threatened because of the election of Abraham Lincoln and the growing abolitionist movement in the North. The war ended with Union victory, the dissolution of the Confederacy and the abolition of slavery, freeing four million African Americans. Decades of controversy over slavery came to a head when Abraham Lincoln, a Republican who opposed slavery's expansion, won the 1860 presidential election. Seven slave states in the South responded to Lincoln's victory by seceding from the United States and forming the Confederate States of America. The Confederacy seized US forts and other federal assets in the South. The war began on April 12, 1861, when the Confederacy bombarded Fort Sumter in South Carolina. A wave of enthusiasm for war swept over the North and South, as military recruitment soared. Four more Southern states seceded after the war began and, led by its president, Jefferson Davis, the Confederacy comprised eleven states, containing a third of the US population. Four years of intense combat, mostly in the South, ensued. During 1861–1862 in the western theater, the Union made permanent gains, though in the eastern theater the conflict was inconclusive. The abolition of slavery became a Union war goal on January 1, 1863, when Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared all slaves in rebel states to be free, applying to more than 3.5 million of the 4 million enslaved people in the country. To the west, the Union first destroyed the Confederacy's river navy by the summer of 1862, then much of its western armies, and seized New Orleans. The successful 1863 Union siege of Vicksburg split the Confederacy in two at the Mississippi River, while Confederate general Robert E. Lee's incursion north failed at the Battle of Gettysburg. General Ulysses S. Grant's western successes led Lincoln to promote him to command of all Union armies in 1864. Inflicting an ever-tightening naval blockade of Confederate ports, the Union marshaled resources and manpower to attack the Confederacy from all directions. This led to the fall of Atlanta in 1864 to Union general William Tecumseh Sherman, followed by his March to the Sea, which culminated in his taking Savannah. The last significant battles raged around the ten-month siege of Petersburg, gateway to the Confederate capital of Richmond. The Confederates abandoned Richmond, and on April 9, 1865, Lee surrendered to Grant following the Battle of Appomattox Court House, setting in motion the end of the war. Lincoln lived to see this victory but was shot by an assassin on April 14, dying the next day. By the end of the war, much of the South's infrastructure had been destroyed. The Confederacy collapsed, the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery, and four million enslaved black people were freed. The war-torn nation then entered the Reconstruction era in an attempt to rebuild the country, bring the former Confederate states back into the United States, and grant civil rights to freed slaves. The war is one of the most extensively studied and written about episodes in the history of the United States. It remains the subject of cultural and historiographical debate. Of continuing interest is the myth of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy. The war was among the first to use industrial warfare. Railroads, the electrical telegraph, steamships, the ironclad warship, and mass-produced weapons were widely used. The war left an estimated 700,000 soldiers dead, along with an undetermined number of civilian deaths, making it the deadliest in American history. The technology and brutality of the Civil War foreshadowed the coming world wars.
1878 Bulletin de la Fédération jurassienne

Last issue of the Bulletin de la Fédération jurassienne, the first or one of the first anarchist newspapers.

The Bulletin de la Fédération jurassienne (Bulletin of the Jura Federation) was an anarchist newspaper which was published between February 1872 and March 1878 in Sonvilier, Le Locle, and later in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland. It was one of the very first anarchist periodicals, serving as the official organ for the Jura Federation and the Anti-Authoritarian International during the foundational years of the anarchist movement. The Bulletin never exceeded a circulation of 600 copies per issue. However, some historians have argued that it played a very important role from both a theoretical and historical perspective. After the schism of the First International between the anarchists and Marxists who clashed at the Hague and Saint-Imier congresses, the Bulletin de la Fédération jurassienne became the primary forum for exchange among the Federation's anarchists. Many notable figures from the movement's first generation, such as Carlo Cafiero, James Guillaume, Peter Kropotkin, and Adhémar Schwitzguébel, collaborated with it. Spanning 283 issues over six years, the Bulletin served as a platform for debating core aspects of anarchist theory and ideology. It focused on anarchist collectivism and syndicalism, and, starting in 1877, it began theorizing propaganda by the deed. After its dissolution, it was succeeded by L'Avant-Garde.
1894 Coxey's Army

Coxey's Army, the first significant American protest march, departs Massillon, Ohio for Washington, D.C.

Coxey's Army was a protest march by unemployed workers from the United States, led by Ohio businessman Jacob Coxey. They marched on Washington, D.C., in 1894, the second year of a four-year economic depression that was the worst in United States history at the time. Officially named the Army of the Commonweal in Christ, its nickname came from its leader and was more enduring. It was the first significant popular protest march on Washington, and the expression "Enough food to feed Coxey's Army" originates from this march.
1905 P.A.E. G.S. Diagoras

The Greek football club P.A.E.

G.S. Diagoras is founded in the city of Rhodes.
G.S. Diagoras 1905 (Greek: Γ.Σ. Διαγόρας 1905) is a Greek football club based in Rhodes city founded in 1905. Diagoras is named after the island's ancient boxer Diagoras. The team first played under Ottoman rule until the short lived independence of the Dodecanese islands in 1912 and then under the Italian occupation of the island. No matches at all were held during the Balkan Wars and the team played only with other local teams until Rhodes and Dodecanese unified with the rest of Greece in 1947.
1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire

In New York City, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire kills 146 garment workers.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire occurred in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, a borough of New York City, on Saturday, March 25, 1911. The fire was the deadliest industrial disaster in the history of the city, and one of the deadliest in U.S. history. The fire caused the deaths of 146 garment workers—123 women and girls and 23 men—who died from either the fire, smoke inhalation, or falling or jumping to their deaths. Most of the victims were recent Italian and Jewish immigrants aged 14 to 23. The factory was located on the 8th, 9th, and 10th floors of the Asch Building (later the Brown Building), which was built in 1901 and remains standing on the New York University (NYU) campus at 23–29 Washington Place, near Washington Square Park. The building has been designated a National Historic Landmark and a New York City landmark. Because the doors to the stairwells and exits were locked—a common practice at the time to prevent workers from taking unauthorized breaks and to reduce theft—many of the workers could not escape from the burning building and jumped from the high windows. There were no sprinklers in the building. The fire led to legislation requiring improved factory safety standards and helped spur the growth of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU), which fought for better working conditions for sweatshop workers.
1911 Kyiv

Andrey Yushchinsky is murdered in Kiev, leading to the Beilis affair.

Kyiv, also spelt Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. Located in the north-central part of the country, it straddles both banks of the Dnieper River. As of January 2022, the population of Kyiv was 2,952,301, making it the seventh-most populous city in Europe. Kyiv is an important industrial, scientific, educational, and cultural center. It is home to high-tech industries, higher education institutions, and historical landmarks. The city has an extensive public transport system, which includes the Kyiv Metro.
1914 Aris_Thessaloniki

The Greek multi-sport club Aris Thessaloniki is founded in Thessaloniki.

Athlitikos Syllogos Aris Thessalonikis, means Athletic Club Aris Thessaloniki, is a major Greek multi-sport club founded on 25 March 1914 in Thessaloniki.
1918 Belarusian_People's_Republic

The Belarusian People's Republic is established.

The Belarusian People's Republic, also known as the Belarusian Democratic Republic, was a state proclaimed by the Council of the Belarusian Democratic Republic in its Second Constituent Charter on 9 March 1918 during World War I. The Council proclaimed the Belarusian Democratic Republic independent in its Third Constituent Charter on 25 March 1918 during the occupation of contemporary Belarus by the Imperial German Army.
1919 Antisemitism_in_Ukraine

The Tetiev pogrom occurs in Ukraine, becoming the prototype of mass murder during the Holocaust.

Antisemitism in Ukraine has been a significant issue in the country, particularly in the twentieth century. The history of the Jewish community of the region dates back to the era when ancient Greek colonies existed in it. A third of the Jews of Europe previously lived in Ukraine between 1791 and 1917, within the Pale of Settlement. The large concentration of Jews in this region historically made them an easy target for anti-Jewish actions and pogroms. Since April 2026, antisemitism in Ukraine is punishable, including by imprisonment.
1924 Greek_War_of_Independence

On the anniversary of Greek Independence, Alexandros Papanastasiou proclaims the Second Hellenic Republic.

The Greek War of Independence, also known as the Greek Revolution or the Greek Revolution of 1821, was a successful war of independence fought by Greek revolutionaries against the Ottoman Empire from 1821 to 1829. In 1826, the Greeks were assisted by the British Empire, the Kingdom of France, and the Russian Empire, while the Ottomans were aided by their vassals, especially by the Eyalet of Egypt. The war led to the formation of modern Greece, which in subsequent years would be expanded to its current size. The revolution is commemorated by Greeks in Greece and the Greek diaspora on 25 March, as Independence Day.
1931 Scottsboro_Boys

The Scottsboro Boys are arrested in Alabama and charged with rape.

The Scottsboro Boys were nine African American male teenagers accused of raping a young white woman and a 17-year-old white girl in 1931. The landmark set of legal cases from this incident dealt with racism and the right to a fair trial. The cases included a lynch mob before the suspects had been indicted, all-white juries, rushed trials, and disruptive mobs. It is commonly cited as an example of a legal injustice in the United States legal system.
1932 Tomb_of_the_Unknown_Soldier_(Athens)

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is unveiled in Athens.

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is a war memorial located in Syntagma Square in Athens, in front of the Old Royal Palace. It is a cenotaph dedicated to the Greek soldiers killed during war. It was sculpted between 1930 and 1932 by sculptor Fokion Rok.
1941 Kingdom_of_Yugoslavia

The Kingdom of Yugoslavia joins the Axis powers with the signing of the Tripartite Pact.

The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a country in Southeast and Central Europe that existed from 1918 until 1941. From 1918 to 1929, it was officially called the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes and was colloquially known as Yugoslavia due to its origins.
1947

An explosion in a coal mine in Centralia, Illinois kills 111.

On March 25, 1947, the Centralia No. 5 coal mine exploded near the town of Centralia, Illinois, killing 111 people. The Mine Safety and Health Administration of the United States Department of Labor reported the explosion was caused when an underburdened shot or blown-out shot ignited coal dust. The US Department of Labor lists the disaster as the second worst US mining disaster since 1940 with a total of 111 men dead.
1948 Tornado_warning

The first successful tornado forecast predicts that a tornado will strike Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma.

A tornado warning is a public warning that is issued by weather forecasting agencies to an area in the path of a tornado, or a severe thunderstorm capable of producing one, and advises individuals in that area to take cover. Modern weather surveillance technology such as Doppler weather radar can detect rotation in a thunderstorm, allowing for early warning before a tornado develops. They are also commonly issued based on reported visual sighting of a tornado, funnel cloud, or wall cloud, typically from weather spotters or the public, but also law enforcement or local emergency management. When radar is unavailable or insufficient, such ground truth is crucial. In particular, a tornado can develop in a gap of radar coverage, of which there are several known in the United States.
1949 Kulak

More than 92,000 kulaks are suddenly deported from the Baltic states to Siberia.

A kulak was a peasant who owned over 3 ha of land in the times near the end of the Russian Empire. In the early Soviet Union, particularly in Soviet Russia and Azerbaijan, kulak referred to property ownership among peasants who were considered hesitant allies of the Bolshevik Revolution. In Ukraine during 1930–1931, there also existed a term of podkulachnik ; these were considered "sub-kulaks".
1957 United_States_Customs_and_Border_Protection

United States Customs seizes copies of Allen Ginsberg's poem "Howl" on obscenity grounds.

United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is the largest federal law enforcement agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security. It is the country's primary border control organization, charged with regulating and facilitating international trade, collecting import duties, as well as enforcing U.S. regulations, including trade, customs, and immigration. The CBP is one of the largest law enforcement agencies in the United States. It has a workforce of more than 45,600 federal agents and officers. It is headquartered in Washington, D.C.
1957 European_Economic_Community

The European Economic Community is established with West Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg as the first members.

The European Economic Community (EEC) was a regional organisation created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957, aiming to foster economic integration among its member states. It was subsequently renamed the European Community (EC) upon becoming integrated into the first pillar of the newly formed European Union (EU) in 1993. In the popular language, the singular European Community was sometimes inaccurately used in the wider sense of the plural European Communities, in spite of the latter designation covering all the three constituent entities of the first pillar. The EEC was also known as the European Common Market (ECM) in the English-speaking countries, and sometimes referred to as the European Community even before it was officially renamed as such in 1993. In 2009, the EC formally ceased to exist and its institutions were directly absorbed by the EU. This made the Union the formal successor institution of the Community.
1959 Chain_Island

Chain Island is sold by the State of California to Russell Gallaway III, a Sacramento businessman who plans to use it as a "hunting and fishing retreat", for $5,258.20 ($58,072 in 2025).

Chain Island is an island in Suisun Bay, downstream of the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta in northern California, and the westernmost piece of land in Sacramento County. In the late 1800s, it was considered an "obstruction to navigation" on the Sacramento River. As it was built up significantly from hydraulic mining tailings upstream on the river, plans were made in the early 20th century to remove it and recoup costs by mining the debris. However, this never happened; it was sold by the California State Lands Commission to a private individual in 1959, who listed it for sale the next year. In April 2016, the deed for the island was transferred; as of December 2022, Sacramento County assesses its land value at $18,622.
1965 Civil_rights_movement

Civil rights activists led by Martin Luther King Jr.

successfully complete their four-day 50-mile (80 km) march from Selma to the capitol in Montgomery, Alabama.
The civil rights movement was a social movement in the United States from 1954 to 1968 which aimed to abolish legalized racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement in the country, which most commonly affected African Americans. The movement had origins in the Reconstruction era in the late 19th century, and modern roots in the 1940s and in Mahatma Gandhi's nonviolent movement in India. After years of nonviolent protests and civil disobedience campaigns, the civil rights movement achieved many of its legislative goals in the 1960s, during which it secured new protections in federal law for the civil rights of all Americans, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Civil Rights Act of 1968.
1971 Army_of_the_Republic_of_Vietnam

The Army of the Republic of Vietnam abandon an attempt to cut off the Ho Chi Minh trail in Laos.

The Army of the Republic of Vietnam composed the ground forces of the South Vietnamese military from its inception in 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. Its predecessor was the ground forces of the Vietnamese National Army, established on 8 December 1950, representing Vietnam to fight in the First Indochina War against the communist Viet Minh rebels. At the ARVN's peak, an estimated 1 in 9 citizens of South Vietnam were enlisted, composed of Regular Forces and the more voluntary Regional Forces and the Popular Force militias. It is estimated to have suffered 1,394,000 casualties during the Vietnam War.
1975 Faisal_of_Saudi_Arabia

Faisal of Saudi Arabia is shot and killed by his nephew.

Faisal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud was King of Saudi Arabia from 1964 until his assassination in 1975. Before his ascension, he served as Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia from 1953 to 1964, and he was briefly regent to his half-brother King Saud in 1964. He was prime minister from 1954 to 1960 and from 1962 to 1975. Faisal was the third son of King Abdulaziz, the founder of modern Saudi Arabia.
1979 Space_Shuttle

The first fully functional Space Shuttle orbiter, Columbia, is delivered to the John F.

Kennedy Space Center to be prepared for its first launch.
The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program name was the Space Transportation System (STS), taken from the 1969 plan led by U.S. vice president Spiro Agnew for a system of reusable spacecraft where it was the only item funded for development.
1988 Candle_demonstration_in_Bratislava

The Candle demonstration in Bratislava is the first mass demonstration of the 1980s against the communist regime in Czechoslovakia.

The Candle demonstration on 25 March 1988 in Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, was the first mass demonstration since 1969 against the communist regime in Czechoslovakia.
1995 WikiWikiWeb

WikiWikiWeb, the world's first wiki, and part of the Portland Pattern Repository, is made public by Ward Cunningham.

The WikiWikiWeb is the first wiki, or user-editable website. It was launched on 25 March 1995 by programmer Ward Cunningham and has been a read-only archive since 2015. The name WikiWikiWeb originally also applied to the wiki software that operated the website, which was later renamed to "WikiBase".
1996 European_Union

The European Union's Veterinarian Committee bans the export of British beef and its by-products as a result of mad cow disease (Bovine spongiform encephalopathy).

The European Union (EU) is a political and economic union of 27 member states that are located primarily in Europe. A supranational union with a total area of 4,233,255 km2 (1,634,469 sq mi) and an estimated population of just under 452 million as of 2026, its member states generated a nominal gross domestic product (GDP) of around €18.802 trillion in 2025, accounting for approximately one sixth of global economic output. The EU is often described as a sui generis political entity combining characteristics of both a federation and a confederation.
2006 Capitol_Hill_massacre

Capitol Hill massacre: A gunman kills six people before taking his own life at a party in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood.

The Capitol Hill massacre was a mass shooting committed by 28-year-old Kyle Aaron Huff in the eastern part of Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood. On the morning of March 25, 2006, Huff entered a rave after-party and opened fire, killing six and wounding two. He would then commit suicide as he was being confronted by police on the front porch of 2112 E. Republican Street.
2006 Belarus

Protesters demanding a new election in Belarus, following the rigged 2006 Belarusian presidential election, clash with riot police.

Opposition leader Aleksander Kozulin is among several protesters arrested.
Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an area of 207,600 square kilometres (80,200 sq mi) with a population of 9.1 million. The country has a hemiboreal climate and is administratively divided into six regions. Minsk is the capital and largest city; it is administered separately as a city with special status.
2018 Syrian_civil_war

Syrian civil war: Following the completion of the Afrin offensive, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) initiate an insurgency against the Turkish occupation of the Afrin District.

The Syrian civil war was an armed conflict that began with the Syrian revolution in March 2011, when popular discontent with the Ba'athist regime ruled by Bashar al-Assad triggered large-scale protests and pro-democracy rallies across Syria, as part of the wider Arab Spring. The Assad regime responded to the protests with lethal force, which led to a series of defections, the emergence of armed opposition groups, and the civilian uprising descending into a civil war. The war lasted almost 14 years and culminated in the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024. Many sources regard this as the end of the civil war even though clashes have continued into 2026.

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