Hankering For History: Events that happened today in history, October 25th!

Some of the great historical events that happened today in history, on October 25th!

1400	Author Geoffrey Chaucer died in London.
1415	An English army under Henry V defeats the French at Agincourt, France. The French had out numbered Henry’s troops 60,000 to 12,000 but British longbows turned the tide of the battle.
1760	Britain’s King George III succeeded his late grandfather, George II.
1854	The English suffered heavy losses against Russia in the Battle of Balaclava during the Crimean War. The battle inspired Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem “Charge of the Light Brigade.”
1856	Amasa M. Rich was born in San Bernardino, California. For more on this mayor and rancher, check out South Fork Companion.
1881	Artist Pablo Picasso was born in Malaga, Spain..
1916	German pilot Rudolf von Eschwege shoots down his first enemy plane, a Nieuport 12 of the Royal Naval Air Service over Bulgaria.
1923	The Teapot Dome scandal comes to public attention as Senator Thomas J. Walsh of Montana, subcommittee chairman, reveals the findings of the past 18 months of investigation. His case will result in the conviction of Harry F. Sinclair of Mammoth Oil, and later Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall, the first cabinet member in American history to go to jail. The scandal, named for the Teapot Dome oil reserves in Wyoming, involved Fall secretly leasing naval oil reserve lands to private companies.
1940	German troops capture Kharkov and launch a new drive toward Moscow.
1944	The Japanese are defeated in the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the world’s largest sea engagement. From this point on, the depleted Japanese Navy increasingly resorts to the suicidal attacks of Kamikaze fighters.
1950	Chinese Communist Forces launch their first-phase offensive across the Yalu River into North Korea.
1951	In a general election, England’s Labour Party loses to Conservatives. Winston Churchill becomes prime minister, and Anthony Eden becomes foreign secretary.
1954	President Eisenhower conducts the first televised Cabinet meeting.
1957	Mob chieftain Albert Anastasia was gunned down while getting a haircut in New York City. For more on this, check out This Day in Crime History.
1958	The last U.S. troops leave Beirut.
1960	Martin Luther King, Jr., is sentenced to four months in prison for a sit-in.
1962	Author John Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature.
1971	The U.N. General Assembly voted to admit mainland China and expel Taiwan.
1983	1,800 U.S. troops and 300 Caribbean troops land on Grenada. U.S. forces soon turn up evidence of a strong Cuban and Soviet presence–large stores of arms and documents suggesting close links to Cuba.
1986	The New York Mets won Game 6 of the World Series in the 10th inning when a routine ground ball went through Boston Red Sox first baseman Bill Buckner’s legs.
1987	New York Times headline–The Worlds Beneath Paris. For more on this, check out This Day in Water History.
1994	Susan Smith of Union, S.C., claimed that a black carjacker had driven off with her two sons. She later confessed to drowning the children and was convicted of murder.
2001	Microsoft released the Windows XP operating system.
2002	Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., 58, was killed in a plane crash in northern Minnesota.
2003	Florida State’s Bobby Bowden became the winningest coach in major college football history with his 339th victory as the Seminoles beat Wake Forest 48-24.
2005	U.S. military deaths in Iraq reached 2,000.

Today’s historical facts are from various sites including, but not limited too: the History Channel, The New York Times, WHG Historynet.com, HistoryOrb.com, and On This Day blogs from my blogroll.