January 25 is the 25th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. There are 340 days remaining (341 in leap years).

Events

• 1327 - Edward III becomes King of England.
• 1494 - Alfonso II becomes King of Naples.
• 1533 - Henry VIII of England secretly marries his second wife Anne Boleyn.
• 1554 - Foundation of São Paulo city, Brazil.
• 1755 - Moscow University established.
• 1791 - The British Parliament splits the old province of Quebec into Upper and Lower Canada.
• 1792 - The London Corresponding Society is founded
• 1858 - The Wedding March by Felix Mendelssohn becomes a popular wedding recessional after it is played on this day at the marriage of Queen Victoria's daughter, Victoria, and Friedrich of Prussia.
• 1881 - Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell form the Oriental Telephone Company.
• 1890 - The United Mine Workers of America is founded.
• 1890 - Nellie Bly completes her round-the-world journey in 72 days.
• 1915 - Alexander Graham Bell inaugurates U.S. transcontinental telephone service.
• 1917 - The Danish West Indies is sold to the United States for $25 million.
• 1919 - The League of Nations is founded.
• 1924 - The 1924 Winter Olympics open in Chamonix, France (in the French Alps), inaugurating the Winter Olympic Games.
• 1941 - Pope Pius XII elevates the Apostolic Vicariate of the Hawaiian Islands to the dignity of a diocese. It becomes the Roman Catholic Diocese of Honolulu.
• 1942 - Thailand declares war on the United States and United Kingdom.
• 1946 - The United Mine Workers rejoins the American Federation of Labor.
• 1949 - At the Hollywood Athletic Club the first Emmy Awards are presented.
• 1949 - The first Israeli election -- David Ben-Gurion becomes Prime Minister.
• 1960 - The National Association of Broadcasters reacts to the Payola scandal by threatening fines for any disk jockeys who accepted money for playing particular records.
• 1961 - In Washington, DC John F. Kennedy delivers the first live presidential television news conference.
• 1971 - Charles Manson and three female "family members" are found guilty of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.
• 1971 - Idi Amin leads a coup deposing Milton Obote and becomes Uganda's president.
• 1971 - Himachal Pradesh becomes the 18th Indian state.
• 1981 - Super Bowl XV: The Oakland Raiders defeat the Philadelphia Eagles, 27-10.
• 1987 - Super Bowl XXI: The New York Giants beat the Denver Broncos, 39-20.
• 1990 - The Burns' Day storm hits Northwestern Europe.
• 1990 - Honduras becomes a member of the Berne Convention copyright treaty.
• 1993 - Mir Amir Kansi kills two employees outside CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
• 1995 - The Norwegian Rocket Incident: Russia almost launches a nuclear attack after Black Brant XII, a Norwegian research rocket, is mistaken for a US Trident missile by the Olenegorsk early-warning radar station.
• 1998 - Super Bowl XXXII: The Denver Broncos beat the Green Bay Packers, 31-24.
• 1999 - A 6.0 Richter scale earthquake hits western Colombia killing at least 1,000.
• 2002 - Wikipedia switched to the new version of its software ("Phase II") aka Magnus Manske Day
• 2004 - Opportunity (MER-B) landed on surface of Mars.
• 2005 - A stampede during a pilgrimage in India kills at least 215.

Births

• 1477 - Anna, Duchess of Brittany, queen of Charles VIII of France (d. 1514)
• 1627 - Robert Boyle, chemist (d. 1691)
• 1736 - Joseph Louis Lagrange, mathematician and astronomer (d. 1813)
• 1759 - Robert Burns, poet (d. 1796)
• 1796 - William MacGillivray, naturalist and ornithologist (d. 1852)
• 1841 - Jackie Fisher, First Sea Lord (d. 1920)
• 1858 - Kokichi Mikimoto, pearl farm pioneer (d. 1954)
• 1860 - Charles Curtis, Vice President of the United States (d. 1936)
• 1874 - William Somerset Maugham (d. 1965)
• 1878 - Ernst Alexanderson, television pioneer
• 1882 - Virginia Woolf, writer (d. 1941)
• 1886 - Wilhelm Furtwängler, conductor (d. 1954)
• 1900 - Yojiro Ishizaka, writer (d. 1986)
• 1900 - Theodosius Dobzhansky, Ukrainian-American geneticist and biologist (d. 1975)
• 1917 - Ilya Prigogine, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1977 (d. 2003)
• 1918 - Ernie Harwell, baseball sportscaster
• 1919 - Edwin Newman, journalist, writer
• 1923 - Arvid Carlsson, scientist, winner of the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
• 1927 - Antonio Carlos Jobim, bossa nova musician
• 1928 - Eduard Shevardnadze, President of Georgia
• 1931 - Dean Jones, actor
• 1933 - Corazon Aquino, President of the Philippines
• 1936 - Diana Hyland, American actress (d. 1977)
• 1938 - Vladimir Vysotsky, Russian bard (poet, singer) and actor (d. 1980)
• 1938 - Etta James, singer
• 1941 - Buddy Baker , NASCAR racer
• 1941 - Gregory Sierra , American actor
• 1942 - Carl Eller, American football player
• 1942 - Eusébio, Portuguese football player
• 1943 - Tobe Hooper, director
• 1944 - Leigh Taylor-Young , American actress
• 1951 - Steve Prefontaine, distance runner (d. 1975)
• 1952 - Timothy White, American journalist (d. 2002
• 1958 - Dinah Manoff , American actress
• 1969 - Kina, American singer
• 1971 - Luca Badoer, Formula One driver from Italy
• 1975 - Tim Montgomery, American athlete
• 1976 - Mia Kirshner, Canadian actress
• 1980 - Christian Olsson, Swedish triple jumper
• 1981 - Alicia Keys, singer, musician

Deaths

• 477 - Geiseric, King of the Vandals and Alans (b. ca. 389)
• 844 - Pope Gregory IV
• 1908 - Ouida, writer (b. 1839)
• 1947 - Al Capone, gangster (b. 1899)
• 1969 - Irene Castle, dancer
• 1970 - Jane Bathori, opera singer (b. 1877)
• 1981 - Adele Astaire, dancer (b. 1897)
• 1982 - Mikhail Suslov, Soviet politician
• 1990 - Ava Gardner, actress (b. 1922)
• 1994 - Stephen Cole Kleene, American mathematician (b. 1909)
• 1995 - John Smith , American actor
• 1996 - Jonathan Larson, American composer (b. 1960)
• 1999 - Robert Shaw, American conductor (b. 1916)
• 2003 - Robert Rockwell , American actor
• 2004 - Fanny Blankers-Koen, Dutch athlete (b. 1918)
• 2004 - Miklós Fehér, football player (b. 1979)
• 2005 - William Augustus Bootle, United States district judge who helped oversee desegregation in the US south (b. 1902)
• 2005 - Philip Johnson, United States architect (b. 1906)
• 2005 - Vicky LaMotta, ex-wife of American boxer Jake LaMotta (b. 1930)
• 2005 - Ray Peterson, United States popular singer best known for the early 1960s hit Tell Laura I Love Her
• 2005 - Max Velthuijs , Dutch writer and illustrator (b. 1923)
• 2005 - Nettie Witziers-Timmer, Dutch athlete (b. 1923)
• 2005 - Dieter Zehentmayr , Austrian caricaturist (b. 1941)
• 2005 - Stanisław Albinowski, Polish economist and journalist (b.1923)

Holidays and observances

• Catholicism and Anglicanism - Conversion of Saint Paul.
• Christian ecumenism — Week of Prayer for Christian Unity ends.
• Burns Night - Burns suppers are held in many parts of the world around this date.
• Tu Bishvat (Jewish holiday, 2005)
• Roman Empire - second day of the Sementivae in honour of Ceres and Terra
• Magnus_Manske_Day - The day in 2002 when Wikipedia switched to the new PHP software ("Phase II")

External links

• BBC: On This Day

January 24 - January 26 - December 25 - February 25 -- listing of all days