25 March - Definition and Overview

March 25 is the 84th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (85th in leap years). There are 281 days remaining.

Events

• 708 - Constantine is consecrated Pope.
• 1306 - Robert the Bruce becomes King of Scotland.
• 1409 - The Council of Pisa opens.
• 1634 - The first settlers arrive in Maryland (led by Lord Baltimore).
• 1655 - Saturn's largest moon, Titan, is discovered by Christian Huygens.
• 1802 - The Treaty of Amiens is signed as a "Definitive Treaty of Peace" between France and United Kingdom.
• 1807 - The Slave Trade Act becomes law, abolishing slavery in the Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
• 1821 - Greece declares its independence from the Ottoman Empire, beginning the Greek War of Independence.
• 1865 - American Civil War: In Virginia, Confederate forces capture Fort Stedman from the Union.
• 1894 - Coxey's Army, the first significant American protest march, departs Massillon, Ohio for Washington D.C..
• 1901 - At the five-day "Week of Nice" race in Nice, France, Mercedes wins its first racing victory.
• 1911 - In New York City the Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire kills 146 garment workers.
• 1918 - Belarusian Democratic Republic proclaims independence.
• 1924 - Greece proclaims itself a republic.
• 1931 - The Scottsboro Boys are arrested in Alabama and charged with rape.
• 1939 - Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli becomes Pope Pius XII.
• 1941 - Kingdom of Yugoslavia joins the Axis powers.
• 1947 - A coalmine explosion in Centralia, Illinois kills 111.
• 1955 - United States Customs seizes Allen Ginsberg's Howl as obscene.
• 1957 - The European Economic Community is established (West Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg).
• 1960 - In London, United Kingdom, Jacqueline Boyer wins the fifth Eurovision Song Contest for France singing "Tom Pillibi".
• 1965 - Civil rights activists led by Martin Luther King, Jr. begin march from Selma to the capitol in Montgomery.
• 1969 - During their honeymoon, John Lennon and Yoko Ono hold a bed-in for peace in the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel (until March 31).
• 1971 - Beginning of Operation Searchlight of Pakistan Army against East Pakistani civilians that started Bangladesh Liberation War.
• 1972 - In Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom, Vicky Leandros wins the seventeenth Eurovision Song Contest for Luxembourg singing "Après toi" (After you).
• 1975 - Faisal of Saudi Arabia is shot and killed by a mentally ill nephew.
• 1979 - The first fully functional space shuttle orbiter, Columbia, is delivered to the John F. Kennedy Space Center to be prepared for its first launch.
• 1990 - In New York City, a fire at an illegal social club called "Happy Land" kills 87.
• 1992 - Cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev returns to Earth after a 10-month stay aboard the Mir space station.
• 1996 - An 81-day long standoff between antigovernment Freemen in Jordan, Montana and federal officers begins.
• 1996 - The EU's Veterinarian Committee bans the export of British beef and its by-products as a result of mad cow disease (BSE).

Births

• 1741 - Jean Antoine Houdon, sculptor, (d. 1828)
• 1863 - Simon Flexner, pathologist who isolated 1899 a common strain (Shigella dysenteriae) of dysentery bacillus, (d. 1946)
• 1867 - Arturo Toscanini, conductor, (d. 1957)
• 1873 - Rudolf Rocker, anarcho-syndicalist, (d. 1958)
• 1881 - Béla Bartók, composer, (d. 1945)
• 1881 - Mary Gladys Webb, writer, (d. 1927)
• 1886 - Athenagoras, Patriarch of Constantinople, (d. 1972)
• 1908 - Helmut Käutner, actor and film director, (d. 1980)
• 1908 - David Lean, film director, (d. 1991)
• 1911 - Jack Ruby, killer of Lee Harvey Oswald, (d. 1967)
• 1918 - Howard Cosell, attorney, lecturer, sports journalist, (d. 1995)
• 1920 - Arthur Wint, Jamaican runner
• 1921 - Simone Signoret, actress, (d. 1985)
• 1925 - Flannery O'Connor, author, (d. 1964)
• 1928 - Jim Lovell, astronaut
• 1935 - Gloria Steinem, feminist, author
• 1938 - Hoyt Axton, musician, actor, (d. 1999)
• 1939 - Toni Cade Bambara, author (d. 1995)
• 1940 - Anita Bryant, entertainer, radical anti-homosexual activist
• 1942 - Aretha Franklin, singer
• 1942 - Richard O'Brien, actor, writer
• 1947 - Elton John, musician
• 1952 - Antanas Mockus, Colombian mathematician and politician
• 1964 - Lisa Gay Hamilton, actress
• 1965 - Sarah Jessica Parker, actress
• 1966 - Tom Glavine, baseball pitcher
• 1967 - Debi Thomas, figure skater
• 1974 - Lark Voorhies, actress
• 1976 - Juvenile, rapper
• 1976 - Wladimir Klitschko, boxer
• 1979 - Kamarali Khan, model

Deaths

• 752 - Pope Stephen II
• 1005 - King Kenneth III of Scotland (in battle)
• 1233 - King Afonso II of Portugal, (b. 1185)
• 1736 - Nicholas Hawksmoor, architect (b. circa 1661)
• 1751 - King Frederick I of Sweden, (b. 1676)
• 1918 - Claude Debussy, composer, (b. 1862)
• 1951 - Eddie Collins, Baseball Hall of Famer (b. 1887)
• 1957 - Max Ophüls, director, writer, (b. 1902)
• 1958 - Tom Brown, jazz musician (b. 1888)
• 1969 - Max Eastman, writer (b. 1883)
• 1975 - King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, (b. 1906)
• 1979 - Natasha Y, Mad Girl
• 1980 - Roland Barthes, critic, writer (b. 1915)
• 1980 - Walter Susskind, Czech conductor (b. 1913)
• 1995 - Kresimir Cosic, professional basketball player, (b. 1948)
• 2002 - Kenneth Wolstenholme, British football commentator

Holidays and observances

• Annunciation - this is nine months before Christmas day.
• One of the four Irish Quarter days in the Irish calendar.
• Traditional date of the start of the new year in Britain, until the adoption of the Gregorian calendar in 1752 (called Lady Day - see above).
• Greek Independence Day.

March 24 - March 26 - February 25 - April 25 -- listing of all days