October 25 in History

Leo I, also known as the Thracian, was Eastern Roman emperor from 457 to 474. He was a native of Dacia Aureliana near historic Thrace. He is sometimes surnamed with the epithet the Great, probably to distinguish him from his young grandson and co-augustus Leo II.

The second Battle of Dorylaeum took place near Dorylaeum in October 1147 during the Second Crusade. The battle consisted of a series of encounters over several days. The German Crusader forces of Conrad III were defeated by the Seljuk Turks led by Sultan Mesud I.

The siege of Lisbon, from 1 July to 25 October 1147, was the military action against the Almoravid dynasty that brought the city of Lisbon under the definitive control of the new Christian power, the Kingdom of Portugal. It is seen as a pivotal battle of the wider Reconquista. The siege of Lisbon was one of the few Christian victories of the Second Crusade—it was "the only success of the universal operation undertaken by the pilgrim army", i.e., the Second Crusade, according to the near contemporary historian Helmold, although others have questioned whether it was really part of that crusade. The fall of Edessa in 1144 (present day Sanliurfa, Turkey) led to a call for a new crusade by Pope Eugene III in 1145 and 1146. In the spring of 1147, the Pope authorized the crusade in the Iberian Peninsula. He also authorized Alfonso VII of León and Castile to equate his campaigns against the Moors with the rest of the Second Crusade. In May 1147, a contingent of crusaders left from Dartmouth, Devon in the Kingdom of England. They had intended to sail directly to the Holy Land, but weather forced the ships to stop on the Portuguese coast at the northern city of Porto on 16 June 1147. There they were convinced to meet with Afonso I of Portugal, who had in 1139 declared himself king of the new Kingdom of Portugal. The crusaders agreed to help the King attack Lisbon, with a solemn agreement that offered to the crusaders the pillage of the city's goods and the ransom money for expected prisoners. The siege began on 1 July. The city of Lisbon at the time of arrival consisted of 60,000 families, including the refugees who had fled Christian onslaught from neighbouring cities of Santarém and others. Also reported by the De expugnatione Lyxbonensi is that the citadel was holding 154,000 men, not counting women and children; as the medieval account put it, after 17 weeks of siege "the inhabitants were despoiled and the city cleansed". The rulers of Lisbon agreed to surrender on 24 October, four months later, primarily because of hunger within the city. Most of the crusaders settled in the newly captured city, but some of the crusaders set sail and continued to the Holy Land. Lisbon eventually became the capital city of the Kingdom of Portugal in 1255.

The Battle of Agincourt (; French: Azincourt [azɛ̃kuʁ]) was an English victory in the Hundred Years' War (1337–1453). It took place on 25 October 1415 (Saint Crispin's Day) near Azincourt, in northern France. The unexpected victory of the vastly outnumbered English troops over the French army boosted English morale, crippled France, and began a new period of English dominance in the war. This advantage lasted for 14 years, until England was defeated by France in 1429 during the Siege of Orléans. After several decades of relative peace, the English had resumed the war in 1415 amid the failure of negotiations with the French. In the ensuing campaign, many soldiers died from disease, and the English numbers dwindled during the Siege of Harfleur; they attempted to withdraw to English-held Calais but found their path blocked by a considerably larger French army. Despite their numerical disadvantage, the battle ended in an overwhelming victory for the English. King Henry V of England led his troops into battle and participated in hand-to-hand fighting. King Charles VI of France did not command the French army as he suffered from psychotic illnesses and associated mental incapacity. The French were commanded by Constable Charles I d'Albret and various prominent French noblemen of the Armagnac party. This battle is notable for the extensive use of the English longbow, as English and Welsh archers comprised nearly 80 percent of Henry's army. The Battle of Agincourt is one of England's most significant triumphs in the Hundred Years' War, alongside the Battle of Crécy (1346) and the Battle of Poitiers (1356). The battle serves as the backdrop for notable works such as William Shakespeare's play Henry V, written in 1599.

Dirk Hartog was a 17th-century Dutch mariner and explorer. Dirk Hartog's expedition was the second European group to land in Australia and the first to leave behind an artefact to record his visit, the Hartog Plate. His name is sometimes alternatively spelled Dirck Hartog or Dierick Hartochsz. Explorer Ernest Giles referred to him as Theodoric Hartog. The Western Australian island Dirk Hartog Island is named after Hartog.

The second battle of Cape Finisterre was a naval encounter fought during the War of the Austrian Succession on 25 October 1747. A British fleet of fourteen ships of the line commanded by Rear-Admiral Edward Hawke intercepted a French convoy of 250 merchant ships, sailing from the Basque Roads in western France to the West Indies and protected by eight ships of the line commanded by Vice Admiral Henri-François des Herbiers. When the two forces sighted each other, Herbiers ordered the merchant ships to scatter, formed his warships into a line of battle and attempted to draw the British warships towards him. In this he was successful, the British advanced on the French warships, enveloped the rear of the French line and brought superior numbers to bear on the French vessels one at a time. Six of the French warships were captured, along with 4,000 of their seamen. Of the 250 merchant ships, only 7 were captured. The British victory isolated the French colonies from supply and reinforcement. The war ended the following year and under the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle France recovered those colonial possessions which had been captured in return for withdrawing from her territorial gains in the Austrian Netherlands (approximately modern Belgium and Luxembourg).

George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 1738 – 29 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and Ireland from 25 October 1760 until his death in 1820. He was concurrently duke and prince-elector of Hanover in the Holy Roman Empire before becoming King of Hanover on 12 October 1814. He was the first monarch of the House of Hanover who was born in Great Britain, spoke English as his first language, and never visited Hanover. George was born during the reign of his paternal grandfather, King George II, as the first son of Frederick, Prince of Wales, and Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha. Following his father's death in 1751, Prince George became heir apparent and Prince of Wales. He succeeded to the throne on George II's death in 1760. The following year, he married Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, with whom he had 15 children. George III's life and reign were marked by a series of military conflicts involving his kingdoms, much of the rest of Europe, and places farther afield in Africa, the Americas and Asia. Early in his reign, Great Britain defeated France in the Seven Years' War, becoming the dominant European power in North America and India. However, Britain lost 13 of its North American colonies in the American War of Independence. Further wars against revolutionary and Napoleonic France from 1793 concluded in the defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. The Acts of Union 1800 merged the separate kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1807, the transatlantic slave trade was banned from the British Empire. In the later part of his life, George had recurrent and eventually permanent mental illness. The exact nature of George's illness is not known definitively, but historians and medical experts have suggested that his symptoms and behaviour traits were consistent with either bipolar disorder or porphyria. In 1810, George suffered a final relapse, and his eldest son, George, Prince of Wales, was named Prince Regent the following year. The King died aged 81, at which time the Regent succeeded him as George IV. George III reigned during much of the Georgian and Regency eras. At the time of his death, he was the longest-lived and longest-reigning British monarch, having reigned for 59 years and 96 days; he remains the longest-lived and longest-reigning male monarch in British history.

The Golden Jubilee of George III, also known as the Grand National Jubilee, was held on 25 October 1809 to mark King George III's entrance into the 50th year of his reign. It was the first of such festivities to be celebrated in a significant way in the United Kingdom and the Colonies. The celebrations were relatively limited compared to the jubilees of some of the ensuing British monarchs.

USS United States was a wooden-hulled, three-masted heavy frigate of the United States Navy and the first of the six original frigates authorized for construction by the Naval Act of 1794. The name "United States" was among ten names submitted to President George Washington by Secretary of War Timothy Pickering in March 1795 for the frigates that were to be constructed. Joshua Humphreys designed the frigates to be the young Navy's capital ships, and so United States and her sisters were larger and more heavily armed and built than typical frigates of the period. She was built at Humphrey's shipyard in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and launched on 10 May 1797 and immediately began duties with the newly formed United States Navy protecting American merchant shipping during the Quasi-War with France.

The first siege of Missolonghi (Greek: Πρώτη πολιορκία του Μεσολογγίου) was an attempt by Ottoman forces to capture the strategically located port town of Missolonghi during the early stages of the Greek War of Independence.

The Battle of Balaclava, fought on 25 October 1854 during the Crimean War, was part of the Siege of Sevastopol (1854–55), an attempt by the British, French and Ottoman allies to capture the port and fortress of Sevastopol, Russia's principal naval base on the Black Sea. The engagement followed the earlier Allied victory in September at the Battle of the Alma, where the Russian General Menshikov had positioned his army in an attempt to stop the Allies progressing south towards their strategic goal. Alma was the first major encounter fought in the Crimean Peninsula since the Allied landings at Kalamita Bay on 14 September, and was a clear battlefield success; but a tardy pursuit by the Allies failed to gain a decisive victory, allowing the Russians to regroup, recover and prepare their defence. The Russians split their forces. Defending within the allied siege lines was primarily the Navy manning the considerable static defenses of the city and threatening the allies from without was the mobile Army under General Menshikov. The Allies decided against a fast assault on Sevastopol and instead prepared for a protracted siege. The British, under the command of Lord Raglan, and the French, under Canrobert, positioned their troops to the south of the port on the Chersonese Peninsula: the French Army occupied the bay of Kamiesch on the west coast whilst the British moved to the southern port of Balaclava. However, this position committed the British to the defence of the right flank of the Allied siege operations, for which Raglan had insufficient troops. Taking advantage of this exposure, the Russian General Liprandi, with some 16,000 men, prepared to attack the strong defences around Balaclava, hoping to disrupt the supply chain between the British base and their siege lines. The battle began with a Russian artillery and infantry attack on the Ottoman redoubts that formed Balaclava's first line of defence on the Vorontsov Heights. The Ottoman forces initially resisted the Russian assaults, but lacking support they were eventually forced to retreat. When the redoubts fell, the Russian cavalry moved to engage the second defensive line in the South Valley, held by the Ottoman and the British 93rd Highland Regiment in what came to be known as the "Thin Red Line". This line held and repelled the attack, as did General James Scarlett's British Heavy Brigade. The latter then charged and defeated the greater proportion of the cavalry advance, forcing the Russians onto the defensive. A final Allied cavalry charge, stemming from a misinterpreted order from Raglan, led to one of the most famous and ill-fated events in British military history – the Charge of the Light Brigade. French troops who came to the aid of the allies tried but failed to recapture the redoubts; their effort, however, convinced the Russians to focus on holding the already-captured positions. Liprandi was wounded in the leg by a grenade fragment, but remained in action.

The Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX; French: Bourse de Toronto) is a stock exchange located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is the 10th largest exchange in the world and the third largest in North America by market capitalization. Based in the EY Tower in Toronto's Financial District, the TSX is a wholly owned subsidiary of the TMX Group for the trading of senior equities.

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 Southern 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 as president in 1860 and the growing abolitionist movement in the North. The war ended with a Union victory, dissolution of the Confederacy and the national abolition of slavery, freeing four million African Americans. Decades of controversy over slavery came to a head when 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. The Confederate States seized United States forts and other federal assets in the South. The war began on April 12, 1861, when the Confederate States 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 Confederate 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. Union 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 Union blockade of Confederate ports, the Union army marshaled resources and the manpower to attack the Confederate States army from all directions. That 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 (except as punishment for a crime) and four million enslaved black people were freed. The war-torn nation then entered the Reconstruction era in an attempt to rebuild the country, reunite by bringing the former Confederate states back into the United States, and grant civil rights to freed black slaves. The war is one of the most extensively studied and written about episodes in the history of the United States, and it remains the subject of cultural and historiographical debate. Interest continues in 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 U.S. history. The technology and brutality of the Civil War foreshadowed the coming world wars.

Uspenski Cathedral (Finnish: Uspenskin katedraali, Swedish: Uspenskijkatedralen) is a Greek Orthodox or Eastern Orthodox cathedral in Helsinki, Finland, and main cathedral of the Orthodox Church of Finland, dedicated to the Dormition of the Theotokos (the Virgin Mary). Its name comes from the Old Church Slavonic word uspenie, which denotes the Dormition. It is the largest Orthodox church in Northern Europe.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky ( chy-KOF-skee; 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) was a Russian composer of the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music made a lasting impression internationally. Tchaikovsky wrote some of the most popular concert and theatrical music in the classical repertoire, including the 1812 Overture, his First Piano Concerto, the Violin Concerto, the Romeo and Juliet Overture-Fantasy, several symphonies, the opera Eugene Onegin, and the ballets Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker. Although musically precocious, Tchaikovsky was educated for a career as a civil servant as there was little opportunity for a musical career in Russia at the time and no institutional music education system. When an opportunity for such an education arose, he entered the nascent Saint Petersburg Conservatory, from which he graduated in 1865. The formal Western-oriented teaching Tchaikovsky received there set him apart from composers of the contemporary nationalist movement embodied by the Russian composers of The Five, with whom his professional relationship was mixed. Despite his many popular successes, Tchaikovsky's life was punctuated by personal crises and depression. Contributory factors included his early separation from his mother for boarding school followed by her early death, the death of his close friend and colleague Nikolai Rubinstein, his failed marriage to Antonina Miliukova, and the collapse of his 13-year association with the wealthy patroness Nadezhda von Meck. Tchaikovsky's homosexuality, which he kept private, has traditionally also been considered a major factor, though some scholars have downplayed its importance. His dedication of his Sixth Symphony to his nephew Vladimir Davydov and the feelings he expressed about Davydov in letters to others have been cited as evidence for romantic love between the two. Tchaikovsky's sudden death at the age of 53 is generally ascribed to cholera, but there is an ongoing debate as to whether cholera was indeed the cause and whether the death was intentional. While his music has remained popular among audiences, critical opinions were initially mixed. Some Russians did not feel it sufficiently represented native musical values and expressed suspicion that Europeans accepted the music for its Western elements. In an apparent reinforcement of that claim, some Europeans lauded Tchaikovsky for offering music more substantive than exoticism and said he transcended the stereotypes of Russian classical music. Others dismissed Tchaikovsky's music as deficient because it did not stringently follow Western principles.

The 1911 Revolution, also known as the Xinhai Revolution or Hsinhai Revolution, culminated in the end of China's last imperial dynasty, the Qing dynasty, and led to the establishment of the Republic of China (ROC). The revolution was the culmination of a decade of agitation, revolts, and uprisings. Its success marked the end of Chinese monarchy, the 267-year reign of the Qing, over two millennia of imperial rule in China, and the beginning of China's early republican era. The Qing had long struggled to reform the government and resist foreign aggression, but conservatives in the Qing court opposed the program of reforms after 1900 as too radical and reformers considered it too slow. Several factions, including underground anti-Qing groups, revolutionaries in exile, reformers who wanted to save the monarchy by modernizing it, and activists across the country debated how or whether to overthrow the Qing dynasty. The flashpoint came on 10 October 1911 with the Wuchang Uprising, an armed rebellion by members of the New Army. Similar revolts then broke out spontaneously around the country, and revolutionaries in every province renounced the Qing dynasty. On 1 November 1911, the Qing court appointed Yuan Shikai (leader of the Beiyang Army) as prime minister, and he began negotiations with the revolutionaries. In Nanjing, revolutionary forces created a provisional coalition government. On 1 January 1912, the Advisory Council declared the establishment of the Republic of China, with Sun Yat-sen, leader of the Tongmenghui, as President of the Republic of China. A brief civil war between the North and the South ended in compromise. Sun resigned in favor of Yuan, who would become president of the new national government if he could secure the abdication of the Qing emperor. The edict of abdication of the six-year-old Xuantong Emperor was promulgated on 12 February 1912. Yuan was sworn in as president on 10 March 1912. In December 1915, Yuan restored the monarchy and proclaimed himself the Hongxian Emperor, but the move was met with strong opposition by the population and the Army, leading to his abdication in March 1916 and the Republic's reinstatement. Yuan's failure to consolidate a legitimate central government before his death in June 1916 led to decades of political division and warlordism, including an attempt at imperial restoration of the Qing dynasty. The name "Xinhai Revolution" derives from the traditional Chinese calendar, where "Xinhai" (辛亥) is the label corresponding to 1911 according to the sexagenary cycle. The governments of both the Republic of China and the People's Republic of China consider themselves the legitimate successors to the 1911 Revolution and honor the ideals of the revolution, including nationalism, republicanism, modernization of China, and national unity. 10 October is the National Day of the Republic of China on Taiwan, and the Anniversary of the 1911 Revolution in China.

Old Style (O.S.) and New Style (N.S.) indicate dating systems before and after a calendar change, respectively. Usually, they refer to the change from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar as enacted in various European countries between 1582 and 1923. Consequently, the same day can have two dates, one for each calendar used to record it. Before as well as after the legal change, writers used the dual dating convention, to specify a given day by giving its date according to both styles of dating.

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (c. 1881 – 10 November 1938) was a Turkish field marshal and statesman who was the founder of the Republic of Turkey and served as its first president from 1923 until his death in 1938. He led sweeping reforms, turning Turkey into an industrialising nation. Ideologically a republican, secularist, and nationalist, his policies and socio-political theories became known as Kemalism. Atatürk's personality cult and the Kemalist historiography developed around it have had significant and ongoing influences on Turkey's political culture and historical narrative. Born in Salonica in the Ottoman Empire, Atatürk was early on persecuted for agitating against Sultan Abdul Hamid II's autocracy, joining opposition movements like the Committee of Union and Progress and the Young Turks. He participated in the Young Turk Revolution and the 31 March Incident. His early military career saw him involved in the Italo-Turkish and Balkan Wars. He rose to prominence with his role in the Defence of Gallipoli during World War I. Following his country's defeat after the war, in the Turkish War of Independence he directed the Turkish National Movement in a nationalist resistance against Turkey's partition among the victorious Allied powers. Establishing the provisional "Ankara government", he achieved a Turkish victory against Greece, Armenia, France, and the United Kingdom, confirmed in the Treaty of Lausanne. During and after the war, the ethnic cleansing of Armenians and Greeks from Anatolia outside of Istanbul, including the Kars region invaded by the Kemalist armies, was largely completed via large-scale massacres, flight, expulsions, and the population exchange between Greece and Turkey. His government subsequently proceeded to abolish the Ottoman sultanate in 1922 and proclaimed the Republic of Turkey in 1923. As the president of the newly formed Turkish Republic, Atatürk introduced far reaching reforms to build a republican and secular nation-state with a modern, Western facing society. By the mid-1920s, opponents to Atatürk's rule were suppressed as a one-party regime was cemented around him. This included abolishing the Ottoman Caliphate and curtailing religion as part of a larger secularist campaign. The semi-secular Mecelle was replaced by a fully secular civil code. Western cultural mores were encouraged: such as the banning of the fez and certain men's clothing. State-owned enterprises were established, foreign industrial assets were nationalised, and the first five-year plan was implemented. He opened thousands of schools and introduced the Latin-based Turkish alphabet. Turkish women received equal civil and political rights during his presidency. His government carried out a policy of Turkification, trying to create a homogeneous, unified, and above all secular nation under the Turkish banner. Atatürk attempted rapprochement with Iran, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Romania, and Greece, as well as the creation of the Balkan Pact that resisted the expansionist aggressions of Italy and Bulgaria during the interwar period of the 1930s. He died on 10 November 1938 at Dolmabahçe Palace in Istanbul, at the age of 57; he was succeeded as president by his long-time prime minister İsmet İnönü. Atatürk has been praised for his military accomplishments, nation-building efforts, social and economic reforms, and diplomatic successes, serving as an inspiration to anti-colonial and anti-imperialist movements. He has been condemned for instituting a dictatorship, introducing assimilationist policies that targeted minorities like the Kurds, and continuing a persecution of Christian minorities started by the CUP, while conservative Muslims have criticised his secular agenda. The Turkish Parliament granted him the surname Atatürk in 1934, meaning "Father of the Turks" or "Turk like his ancestors", in recognition of the role he played in building the Turkish Republic.

Terence James MacSwiney (; Irish: Toirdhealbhach Mac Suibhne; 28 March 1879 – 25 October 1920) was an Irish playwright, author and politician. He was elected as Sinn Féin Lord Mayor of Cork during the Irish War of Independence in 1920. He was arrested by the British Government on charges of sedition and imprisoned in Brixton Prison. His death there in October 1920 after 74 days on hunger strike brought him and the Irish Republican campaign to international attention.

SS Principessa Mafalda was an Italian transatlantic ocean liner built for the Navigazione Generale Italiana (NGI) company. Named after Princess Mafalda of Savoy, second daughter of King Victor Emmanuel III, the ship was completed and entered NGI's South American service between Genoa and Buenos Aires in 1909. Her sister ship SS Principessa Jolanda sank immediately upon launching on 22 September 1907.

George Lansbury (22 February 1859 – 7 May 1940) was a British politician and social reformer who led the Labour Party from 1932 to 1935. Apart from a brief period of ministerial office during the Labour government of 1929–31, he spent his political life campaigning against established authority and vested interests, his main causes being the promotion of social justice, women's rights, and world disarmament. Originally a radical Liberal, Lansbury became a socialist in the early 1890s, and thereafter served his local community in the East End of London in numerous elective offices. His activities were underpinned by his Christian beliefs which, except for a short period of doubt, sustained him through his life. Elected to the UK Parliament in 1910, he resigned his seat in 1912 to campaign for women's suffrage, and was briefly imprisoned after publicly supporting militant action. In 1912, Lansbury helped to establish the Daily Herald newspaper, and became its editor. Throughout the First World War, the paper maintained a strongly pacifist stance, and supported the October 1917 Russian Revolution. These positions contributed to Lansbury's failure to be elected to Parliament in 1918. He devoted himself to local politics in his home borough of Poplar, and went to prison with 30 fellow councillors for his part in the Poplar Rates Rebellion of 1921. After his return to Parliament in 1922, Lansbury was denied office in the brief Labour government of 1924, although he served as First Commissioner of Works in the Labour government of 1929–1931. After the political and economic crisis of August 1931, Lansbury did not follow his leader, Ramsay MacDonald, into the National Government, but remained with the Labour Party. As the most senior of the small contingent of Labour MPs that survived the 1931 UK general election, Lansbury became the Leader of the Labour Party. His pacifism and his opposition to rearmament in the face of rising European fascism put him at odds with his party, and when his position was rejected at the 1935 Labour Party conference, he resigned the leadership. He spent his final years travelling through the United States and Europe in the cause of peace and disarmament.

Benjamin Oliver Davis Sr. (July 1, 1877 – November 26, 1970) was a career officer in the United States Army. One of the few black officers in an era when American society was largely segregated, in 1940 he was promoted to brigadier general, the army's first African American general officer. A native of Washington, D.C., Davis attended M Street High School, where he obtained his first military experience by participating in the school's corps of cadets program. During his senior year, he also enrolled in courses at Howard University, which enabled him to play on the school's football team. After his 1898 graduation, Davis served briefly as a second lieutenant in the District of Columbia National Guard before joining the 8th U.S. Volunteer Infantry for the Spanish–American War and receiving his commission as a first lieutenant. After the war, Davis was discharged from the volunteers and joined the regular army as a private. He soon became a non-commissioned officer, and in 1901 passed the commissioning exam and received appointment as a second lieutenant of Cavalry. Davis served in the Philippine–American War and World War I, in which he demonstrated noteworthy leadership and administrative ability, but found himself frequently shunted to less than desirable assignments as his career progressed. In addition to receiving less prestigious assignments such as professor of military science at historically black colleges because of segregation in the army, as one of only a handful of black officers he also experienced delays in promotions and disapproval of recommendations for professional education such as the United States Army Command and General Staff College. Despite these challenges, Davis worked within the army's white hierarchy to attain a record of superior technical and tactical proficiency as he slowly rose through the ranks. He was promoted to colonel in 1930, and commanded the New York National Guard's 369th Infantry Regiment (later the 369th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Regiment) from 1938 to 1940. Though he was near retirement, political considerations during the 1940 United States presidential election, the need to obtain the support of black citizens for U.S. involvement in World War II and Davis's own long record of accomplishments led to his promotion to brigadier general. He commanded 4th Cavalry Brigade, 2nd Cavalry Division during its organization and training, and also served as acting division commander. He attained the mandatory retirement age of 64 in 1941, but remained on active duty to perform wartime inspections of black units and offer observations and recommendations on policies including racial integration. Davis retired in 1948 and resided in Washington, D.C. He was a member of the American Battle Monuments Commission from 1953 to 1961. Davis later moved to Chicago to reside with one of his daughters. He died at Great Lakes Naval Hospital on November 26, 1970. Davis was buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Davis's children included Benjamin O. Davis Jr., the first black general in the United States Air Force.

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.

USS Tang (hull number SS-306) was a Balao-class submarine of World War II, the first ship of the United States Navy to bear the name Tang. She was built and launched in 1943, serving until being sunk by her own torpedo off China in the Taiwan Strait on 24 October 1944. In her short career in the Pacific War, Tang sank 33 ships totalling 116,454 tons. Commander Richard O'Kane received the Medal of Honor for her last two engagements (23 and 24 October 1944). Tang was sunk during the last engagement by a circular run of her final torpedo, going down in 180 ft (55 m) of water; 78 men were lost while nine survivors were picked up by a Japanese frigate and taken as prisoners of war. This was the only known time that a Momsen lung was used to escape a sunken submarine.

The Battle of Leyte Gulf (23–26 October 1944) was the largest naval battle of World War II and by some criteria the largest naval battle in history, with over 200,000 naval personnel involved. By late 1944, the Japanese fleet had become much weaker than that of the Allied forces; it contained fewer capital ships (aircraft carriers and battleships) than the Allies had aircraft carriers in the Pacific. After the catastrophic Battle of the Philippine Sea in June 1944, senior Japanese military leaders understood that their remaining naval forces were incapable of achieving a strategic victory against the Allies. However, the Japanese general staff believed that continuing to contest Allied offensives at sea was necessary to deter an invasion of mainland Japan and to give the Japanese navy an opportunity to use its remaining strength. As a result, the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) mobilized nearly all of its remaining major naval vessels in an attempt to repel the Allied invasion of the Philippines, but it was defeated by the U.S. Navy's Third and Seventh Fleets. The battle consisted of four main engagements (the Battle of the Sibuyan Sea, the Battle of Surigao Strait, the Battle off Cape Engaño, and the Battle off Samar) and several lesser actions. Allied forces announced the end of organized Japanese resistance on the island of Leyte at the end of December. It was the first battle in which Japanese aircraft carried out organized kamikaze attacks, and it was the last-ever battle between battleships. The Japanese navy suffered crippling losses and did not sail in comparable force for the remainder of the war, as most of its vessels were stranded in port for lack of fuel.

Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia comprising primarily the island of Taiwan, formerly known as Formosa, which has an area of 35,808 km2 (13,826 sq mi) and makes up 99% of the land under ROC control. It lies about 180 km (112 mi) across the Taiwan Strait from the southeastern coast of mainland China's Fujian Province. The East China Sea is to the north of the island, the Philippine Sea to its east, the Luzon Strait directly to its south, and the South China Sea to its southwest. The ROC also controls a number of smaller islands, including the Penghu archipelago in the Taiwan Strait, Kinmen and Matsu in Fuchien near the mainland coast, as well as Pratas and Taiping in the South China Sea. Geologically, the main island comprises a tilted fault block, characterized by the contrast between the eastern two-thirds, consisting mostly of five rugged mountain ranges running parallel to the east coast, and the flat to gently rolling plains of the western third, where the majority of the population resides. Several peaks exceed 3,500 m in height – the highest, Yu Shan at 3,952 m (12,966 ft), makes Taiwan the world's fourth-highest island. The tectonic boundary that formed these ranges remains active, and the island experiences many earthquakes, some of them highly destructive. There are also many active submarine volcanoes in the Taiwan Straits. The climate ranges from tropical in the south to subtropical in the north, and is governed by the East Asian monsoon. On average, four typhoons strike the main island each year. The heavily forested eastern mountains provide a habitat for a diverse range of wildlife, while human land use in the western and northern lowlands is intensive.

The Battle of Guningtou (古寧頭之役), also known as the Battle of Kuningtou or the Battle of Kinmen (Chinese: 金門戰役), was fought in October 1949 on the island of Kinmen (Quemoy), located in the Taiwan Strait, during the final stages of the Chinese Civil War. The battle resulted in a decisive victory for the Republic of China (ROC, known today as Taiwan) forces and marked a significant turning point in the civil war. The defeat of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) forces not only preserved Kinmen under ROC control but also effectively halted CCP plans for an immediate invasion of Taiwan. The victory ensured the survival of the Republic of China government on Taiwan and reshaped the strategic landscape of the Taiwan Strait. Starting in 2025, October 25 is designated annually as "Taiwan Retrocession Day and the Anniversary of the Battle of Guningtou" to commemorate victory of the battle along with the Taiwan Retrocession Day, which is a public holiday in Taiwan.

The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis in Cuba (Spanish: Crisis de Octubre), or the Caribbean Crisis (Russian: Карибский кризис, romanized: Karibskiy krizis), was a 13-day confrontation between the governments of the United States and the Soviet Union, when American deployments of nuclear missiles in the United Kingdom, Italy and Turkey were matched by Soviet deployments of nuclear missiles in Cuba. The crisis lasted from 16 to 28 October 1962. The confrontation is widely considered the closest the Cold War came to escalating into full-scale nuclear war. In 1959, the US government deployed Thor nuclear missiles in England, an initiative known as Project Emily. In 1961 the US put Jupiter nuclear missiles in Italy and Turkey. All were within range of Moscow. The US had also trained a paramilitary force of Cuban expatriates, for a CIA-led attempt to invade Cuba and overthrow its government in April 1961. Starting in November of that year, the US government engaged in a violent campaign of terrorism and sabotage in Cuba, referred to as the Cuban Project, which continued throughout the first half of the 1960s. The Soviet administration was concerned about a Cuban drift towards China, with which the Soviets had an increasingly strained relationship. In response to these factors the Soviet and Cuban governments agreed, at a meeting between leaders Nikita Khrushchev and Fidel Castro in July 1962, to place nuclear missiles on Cuba to deter a future US invasion. Construction of launch facilities started shortly thereafter. A U-2 spy plane captured photographic evidence of medium- and long-range launch facilities in October. US president John F. Kennedy convened a meeting of the National Security Council and other key advisers, forming the Executive Committee of the National Security Council (EXCOMM). Kennedy was advised to carry out an air strike on Cuban soil in order to compromise Soviet missile supplies, followed by an invasion of the Cuban mainland. He chose a less aggressive course in order to avoid a declaration of war. On 22 October, Kennedy ordered a naval blockade to prevent further missiles from reaching Cuba. He referred to the blockade as a "quarantine", not as a blockade, so the US could avoid the formal implications of a state of war. An agreement was eventually reached between Kennedy and Khrushchev. The Soviets would dismantle their offensive weapons in Cuba, subject to United Nations verification, in exchange for a US public declaration and agreement not to invade Cuba again. The United States secretly agreed to dismantle all of the offensive weapons it had deployed to Turkey. All Thors in the UK were disbanded by August 1963. While the Soviets dismantled their missiles, some Soviet bombers remained in Cuba, and the United States kept the naval quarantine in place until 20 November 1962. The blockade was formally ended on 20 November after all offensive missiles and bombers had been withdrawn from Cuba. The evident necessity of a quick and direct communication line between the two powers resulted in the Moscow–Washington hotline. A series of agreements later reduced US–Soviet tensions for several years. The compromise embarrassed Khrushchev and the Soviet Union because the withdrawal of US missiles from Italy and Turkey was a secret deal between Kennedy and Khrushchev, and the Soviets were seen as retreating from a situation that they had started. Khrushchev's fall from power two years later was in part because of the Soviet Politburo's embarrassment at both Khrushchev's eventual concessions to the US and his ineptitude in precipitating the crisis. According to the Soviet ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Dobrynin, the top Soviet leadership took the Cuban outcome as "a blow to its prestige bordering on humiliation".

The Fairchild F-27 and Fairchild Hiller FH-227 are versions of the Fokker F27 Friendship twin-engined, turboprop, passenger aircraft formerly manufactured under license by Fairchild Hiller in the United States. The Fairchild F-27 was similar to the standard Fokker F27, while the FH-227 was an independently developed, stretched version.

China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is divided into 33 province-level divisions, including two special administrative regions. Beijing is the capital, while Shanghai is the most populous city by urban area. Its geography features the Central Plain, major rivers such as the Yangtze and Yellow River, deserts, subtropical and temperate forests, plateaus, and mountain ranges such as the Himalayas. It is the world's second-most populous country after India, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion. Covering 9.6 million square kilometers (3,700,000 sq mi), it is the third largest country by area.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 339 was adopted on 23 October 1973 in order to bring a ceasefire in the Yom Kippur War where Resolution 338 two days before had failed.

The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction or Hague Abduction Convention is a multilateral treaty that provides an expeditious method to return a child who was wrongfully taken by a parent from one country to another country. In order for the Convention to apply, both countries must be Contracting States; i.e. both must have adopted the Convention.

The United States and a coalition of Caribbean countries invaded the island nation of Grenada at dawn on 25 October 1983. It was codenamed Operation Urgent Fury by the U.S. military, and resulted in military occupation within a few days. It was triggered by strife within the People's Revolutionary Government, which led to the house arrest and execution of the previous leader and second Prime Minister of Grenada, Maurice Bishop, and to the establishment of the Revolutionary Military Council, with Hudson Austin as chairman. Following the invasion there was an interim government appointed, and then general elections held in December 1984.

The Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, also known as Soviet Kazakhstan, the Kazakh SSR, KSSR, or simply Kazakhstan, was one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union (USSR) from 1936 to 1991. Being located in northern Central Asia, the Kazakh SSR was created on 5 December 1936 from the erstwhile Kazakh ASSR, which was an autonomous republic of the Russian SFSR. It shared borders with its fellow Soviet republics of Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, while also sharing an international border with the People's Republic of China.

The 1995 Fox River Grove bus–train collision was a grade crossing collision that killed seven students riding aboard a school bus in Fox River Grove, Illinois, on the morning of October 25, 1995. The school bus, driven by a substitute driver, who was also the trainer of bus drivers in the district, was stopped at a traffic light with the rearmost portion extending onto a portion of the railroad tracks when it was struck by a Metra Union Pacific Northwest Line train, train 624 en route to Chicago.

The Second Republic of the Congo Civil War, also known as the Second Brazzaville-Congolese Civil War, was the second of two ethnopolitical civil conflicts in the Republic of the Congo which lasted from 5 June 1997 to 29 December 1999. The war served as the continuation of the civil war of 1993–1994 and involved militias representing three political candidates. The conflict ended following the intervention of the Angolan military, which reinstated former president Denis Sassou Nguesso to power.

The Learjet Model 35 and Model 36 are a series of American multi-role business jets and military transport aircraft manufactured by Learjet between 1973 and 1993. When used by the United States Air Force, they carry the designation C-21A. Learjet was acquired by Bombardier Aviation in 1990 as a subsidiary, so the aircraft is also known as the Bombardier Learjet 35.

Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. The company became influential in the rise of personal computers through software like Windows and has since expanded into areas such as Internet services, cloud computing, artificial intelligence and video gaming among others. A Big Tech company, Microsoft is the largest software company by revenue, one of the most valuable public companies, and one of the most valuable brands globally.

The 2010 Mentawai earthquake occurred with a moment magnitude of 7.8 on 25 October off the western coast of Sumatra at 21:42 local time. The earthquake occurred on the same subduction zone that produced the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake. It was widely felt across the provinces of Bengkulu and West Sumatra and resulted in a substantial localized tsunami that struck the Mentawai Islands.

On October 25, 2023, 40-year-old Robert Card carried out a spree shooting in Lewiston, Maine, United States, killing 18 people and wounding 13 others. The initial attack occurred at the Just-In-Time Recreation bowling alley during a youth league event, followed shortly by a second shooting at the Schemengees Bar & Grille Restaurant. Following these events, Card escaped, prompting the Androscoggin Sheriff's Office to release his photograph identifying him as the suspect and the Maine State Police to initiate a homicide investigation and the most extensive manhunt in state history.