25th July, on this day

85 Diocletian appoints Maximian as Caesar, co-ruler.
306 Constantine I proclaimed Roman emperor by his troops.
864 Edict of Pistres of Charles the Bald orders defensive measures against the Vikings.
1139 Battle of Ourique: The independence of Portugal from the Kingdom of León and Castile declared after the battle against the Almoravids.
1261 The city of Constantinople is recaptured by Nicaean forces under the command of Alexios Strategopoulos, thus re-establishing the Byzantine Empire.
1360 Jews are expelled from Breslau, Silesia
1536 Sebastián de Belalcázar on his search of El Dorado found the City of Santiago de Cali.
1538 The City of Guayaquil is founded by the Spanish Conquistador Francisco de Orellana and given the name Muy Noble y Muy Leal Ciudad de Santiago de Guayaquil.
1547 Henry II of France crowned.
1567 Don Diego de Losada founds the city of Santiago de Leon de Caracas, modern-day Caracas, the capital city of Venezuela.
1593 France's Protestant King Henri IV converts to Roman Catholic
1603 James VI of Scotland is crowned James I of England.
1670 Jews are expelled from Vienna Austria
1722 Three Years War begins along Maine and Massachusetts border.
1729 North Carolina becomes royal colony
1755 The decision to deport the Acadians takes place in Halifax. Thousands of Acadians are sent to the British Colonies in America, France and England. Some later moved to Louisiana, while others later resettled in New Brunswick.
1758 Seven Years' War: The island battery at Fortress Louisbourg in Nova Scotia is silenced and all French warships are destroyed or taken
1759 British capture Fort Niagara from French (7 Years' War)
1775 Maryland issues currency depicting George III trampling Magna Carta
1792 The Brunswick Manifesto is issued to the population of Paris promising vengeance if the French Royal Family is harmed.
1795 The first stone of the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct is laid.
1797 Horatio Nelson loses more than 300 men and his right arm during the failed conquest attempt of Tenerife Island (Spain).
1799 French-Egyptian forces under Napolean I beat Turks at Battle of Abukir
1814 Battle of Niagara Falls (Lundy's Lane); Americans defeat British
1814 English inventor George Stephenson demonstrates the first steam engine
1832 1st railroad accident in US, Granite Railway, Quincy, Mass-1 death
1837 The first commercial use of an electric telegraph was successfully demonstrated by William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone on 25 July 1837 between Euston and Camden Town in London.
1853 Joaquin Murietta, famous Californio bandit known as "Robin Hood of El Dorado", is killed.
1861 American Civil War: The Crittenden-Johnson Resolution is passed by the U.S. Congress stating that the war is being fought to preserve the Union and not to end slavery.
1866 US Grant named 1st general of Army
1868 Territory of Wyoming created
1871 Carrousel patented by Wilhelm Schneider, Davenport, Iowa
1894 The First Sino-Japanese War begins when the Japanese fire upon a Chinese warship.
1897 Writer Jack London sails to join the Klondike Gold Rush where he will write his first successful stories.
1898 1st US troops land and occupy Puerto Rice, at Guanica Bay
1907 In England, Sir Robert Baden-Powell begins an experimental camp on Brownsea Island near Poole to test the feasibility of Scouting. Four days later he forms then Boy Scout organisation
1907 Korea becomes a protectorate of Japan.
1909 French aviator Louis Bleriot becomes first man to fly across Channel from a field near Calais to Northfall Meadow near Dover Castle, England
1912 Comoros proclaimed a French colonies
1916 Explosion at Lake Erie and Cleveland Waterworks
1917 World War I: Dutch spy Margarethe Zelle - known as exotic dancer Mata Hari - is sentenced to death
1918 Race riot in Chester Pennsylvania (3 blacks and 2 whites killed)
1920 First transatlantic two-way radio broadcast takes place.
1925 Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS) is established.
1934 Nazis assassinate Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss in a failed coup attempt.
1940 General Guisan orders the Swiss Army to resist German invasion and make surrender illegal.
1940 In US John Sigmund begins swimming for 89 hrs 46 mins in the Mississippi River
1943 World War II: Italian dictator Benito Mussolini is forced to resign
1944 World War II: The Germans first use a jet fighter - the Messerschmitt 262 - in aerial combat
1944 World War II: Operation Spring - One of the bloodiest days for Canadians during the war: 18,444 casualties, including 5,021 killed.
1946 1st bikini is shown at a Paris fashion show
1946 The United States detonates an atomic bomb at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean - Operation Crossroads
1946 At Club 500 in Atlantic City, New Jersey, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis stage their first show as a comedy team.
1952 Commonwealth of Puerto Rico created
1956 Italian liner Andrea Doria sank after colliding with the Stockholm
1956 Jordanians attack UN Palestine truce
1957 Monarchy in Tunisa abolished in favor of a republic
1959 A Hovercraft - the SRN 1 - makes its first English Channel crossing from Dover to Calais in a little over two hours
1961 John F. Kennedy speech emphasizes that any attack on Berlin is an attack on NATO.
1962 In London, the Buckingham Palace Art Gallery officially opens to the public
1963 US, Russia and England sign nuclear test ban treaty
1964 Beatles' "Hard Day's Night, A," album goes to number 1 and stays 1 for 14 weeks
1964 Race riot in Rochester, NY
1965 Folk-rock begins, Dylan uses electricity at Newport Folk Festival
1966 Supremes release "You Can't Hurry Love"
1969 70,000 attend Seattle Pop Festival
1969 Vietnam War: US President Richard Nixon declares the Nixon Doctrine, stating that the United States now expects its Asian allies to take care of their own military defense. This was the start of the "Vietnamization" of the war.
1972 US health officials concede blacks were used as guinea pigs in
40 year syphillis experiment
1973 George Harrison pays 1,000,000 tax on his Bangladesh concert and album
1973 USSR launches Mars 5
1975 "A Chorus Line," longest-running Broadway show (6,137), premiers
1978 The world's first test tube baby, Louise Joy Brown, is born at Oldham General Hospital in the north of England
1978 The Cerro Maravilla Incident occurs.
1981 Voyager 2 encounters Saturn
1983 1st nonhuman primate (baboon) conceived in a lab dish, San Antonio
1983 Black July: 37 Tamil political prisoners at the Welikada high security prison in Colombo were massacred by the fellow Sinhalese prisoners.
1984 Cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya became 1st woman to walk in space
1985 Spokeswoman for Rock Hudson confirmed he had AIDS
1987 USSR launches Kosmos 1870, 15-ton Earth-study satellite
1990 US Ambassador tells Iraq, US won't take sides in Iraq-Kuwait dispute
1992 25th Olympic Summer games opens in Barcelona, Spain
1993 Israel launches a massive attack against Lebanon in what the Israelis call Operation Accountability, and the Lebanese call Seven-Day War.
1993 The St James Church massacre occurs in Kenilworth, Cape Town, South Africa.
1994 Israel and Jordan sign the Washington Declaration, which formally ends the state of war that has existed between the nations since 1948.
1995 A gas bottle exploded in station Saint Michel of line B of the RER (Paris regional train network). Eight were killed and 80 wounded.
1997 K.R. Narayanan is sworn-in as India's 10th president and the first Dalit— formerly called "untouchable"— to hold this office.
2000 Air France Flight 4590, a Concorde supersonic passenger jet, F-BTSC, crashes just after takeoff from Paris killing all 109 aboard and 4 on the ground.
2007 Pratibha Patil is sworn in as India's first woman president

25th July 2006

Israel 'to control Lebanon strip'

US unveils Baghdad security boost

Creditors vote to bankrupt Yukos

25th July 2007

Sarkozy to boost EU-Libya links

Iraq bomb strikes football fans

Facebook site faces fraud claim

25th July 2008

DR Congo boat accident 'kills 42'

Five die in Gaza City explosion

Hole forces Qantas plane to land

25th July 2009

First baby panda born from frozen sperm

WWI veteran Patch dies aged 111

Pilot recreates Channel crossing

25th July 2010

BP chief Hayward 'negotiating exit deal'

Bus-stop bombing kills one in Bangkok

Al-Qaeda in 'kills French hostage'

Birthdates which occurred on 25th July :

975 Thietmar bishop of Merseburg, German chronicler
1575 Christoph Scheiner Germany, astronomer
1775 Anna Symmes Harrison 1st lady
1840 Flora Adams Darling founded Daughters of American Revolution
1848 Arthur Earl Balfour (C), British PM (1902-05) (Balfour Declaration)
1883 Alfredo Casella Turin Italy, composer (La Giara)
1884 Davidson Black Canada, doctor of anatomy (identified Peking Man)
1894 Walter Brennan Swampscott Mass, actress (Real McCoys, At Gun Point)
1899 Ralph Dumke Indiana, actor (Movieland Quiz)
19-- Ken Swofford DuQuoin Ill, actor (Quentin-Fame)
1902 Eric Hoffer longshoreman/author (True Believer)
1905 Elias Canetti Bulgarian/British novelist/essayist (Nobel 1981)
1907 Jack Gilford NYC, actor (Save the Tiger, Cocoon, Arthur 2)
1924 Estelle Getty NYC, actress (Sophia Petrillo-Golden Girls)
1924 Frank Church (Sen-D-Id)
1925 Jerry Paris SF Calif, director/actor (Jerry-Dick Van Dyke Show)
1927 Midge Decter St Paul Minn, anti woman's lib (Liberated Woman...)
1930 Maureen Forrester Montreal Canada, contralto (Ressurection Symphony)
1932 Paul J Weitz Erie Pennsylvania, astronaut (Skylab 2, STS 6)
1935 Adnan Khashoggi billionaire/arms dealer
1935 Barbara Harris actress (Plaza Suite, Family Plot)
1935 Laurent Terzieff Paris France, actor (Pharoah-Moses the Law Giver)
1940 John Pennel pole vaulter (James E Sullivan Award-1963)
1941 Nate Thurmond NBA star (Cleveland Cavaliers)
1943 Janet Margolin NYC, actress (Take the Money & Run, David & Lisa)
1943 Jim McCarty rocker (The Yardbirds-For Your Love)
1945 Donna Theodore Broadway singer (Hollywood Talent Scouts)
1948 Steve Goodman Chicago, singer/songwriter (Somebody Elses Trouble)
1954 Lynn Frederick Middlesex England, actress (Schizophrenia)
1954 Walter Payton NFL running back (Chicago Bears)
1955 Iman model/David Bowie's girlfriend/actress (Star Trek VI)
1957 Bogdan Musiol German DR, bobsled (Olympic-bronze-1980)
1961 Katherine Kelly Lang LA Calif, actress (Brooke-Bold & Beautiful)
1975 Jay R Ferguson Jr Dallas Tx, actor (Taylor Newton-Evening Shade)
1978 Louise Brown Oldham England, world's 1st `test tube baby'
1990 Evan James Springsteen son of Bruce

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Deaths which occurred on July 25th:
1616 Andreas Libavius German alchemist, dies
1934 Engelbert Dollfuss Austrian chancellor assassinated by nazis
1959 Dr Isaac Halevi Herzog chief rabbi of Israel (1936-59), dies at 71
1981 Ian Martin actor (Uncle Bill-O'Neills), dies at 69
1986 Vincente Minnelli movie director, dies in LA at 76
1987 Malcolm Baldrige Secretary of Commerce, dies of internal injuries