September 25



Events

Up to 1900 
 275  In Rome, the Senate proclaims Marcus Claudius Tacitus Roman Emperor.
 303  On a voyage preaching the gospel, Saint Fermin of Pamplona is beheaded in Amiens, northern France.
 1066  The Battle of Stamford Bridge marks the end of the Viking invasions of England.
 1237  Scotland and England sign the Treaty of York, marking their common border.
 1396  Ottoman Sultan Bayezid I defeats a Christian army at the Battle of Nicopolis.
 1493  From Cadiz, Spain, Christopher Columbus sets sail on his second voyage.
 1513  Spanish explorers become the first Europeans to sight the Pacific Ocean.
 1621  Swedish  troops take Riga in the Polish-Swedish War.
 1775  American Revolutionary War: Ethan Allen surrenders to British forces after attempting to capture Montreal during the Battle of Longue-Pointe. Benedict Arnold and his expeditionary company set off from Fort Western, bound for Quebec City.
 1789  The United States Congress passes twelve amendments (changes) to the United States Constitution.
 1790  Peking opera begins, to celebrate the birthday of Qianlong Emperor of China.
 1804  The Teton Sioux (a subdivision of the Lakota) demand one of the boats from the Lewis and Clark expedition as a toll for moving further upriver.
 1846  Mexican-American War: US forces under Zachary Taylor capture Monterrey, Mexico.
 1868  The Imperial Russian steam frigate Alexander Neuski is shipwrecked off Jutland while carrying Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich of Russia.
 1890  Sequoia National Park in California is founded.

1901  2000 
 1906  In presence of the King of Spain and a big crowd, Leonardo Torres Quevedo successfully demonstrates the invention of 'Telekino' in the Basque port city of Bilbao, guiding a boat from shore, in what is now considered the birth of the remote control.
 1911  Ground is broken for Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts.
 1912  Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism is founded in New York City.
 1913  Charlie Chaplin signs his first movie contract.
 1915  World War I: Start of the Second Battle of Champagne.
 1926  The International Convention to Suppress the Slave Trade and Slavery is first signed.
 1929  Jimmy Doolittle performs the first blind flight from Mitchel Field, proving that full instrument flying from take-off to landing is possible.
 1937  Second Sino-Japanese War: Minor but morale-boosting victory for Chinese forces.
 1938  American Don Budge becomes the first tennis player to win all four Grand Slams in one year.
 1942  Holocaust: Switzerland denies entry to Jewish refugees.
 1944  World War II: The British 1st Airborne Division withdraw from Arnhem, Netherlands, ending Operation Market Garden.
 1950  Korean War: UN forces enter Seoul.
 1955  The Royal Jordanian Air Force is founded.
 1956  TAT-1, the first submarine (under the sea) transatlantic telephone cable system, is inaugurated.
 1957  Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas is integrated with help from United States Army troops.
 1959  Sri Lankan Prime Minister Solomon Bandaranaike is shot by Buddhist monk Talduwe Somarama, and dies the next day.
 1962  The People's Democratic Republic of Algeria is proclaimed.
 1962  The North Yemen Civil War begins.
 1964  Mozambique's War of Independence from Portugal begins.
 1969  The charter establishing the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation is signed.
 1972  In a referendum, voters in Norway reject membership of the European Community.
 1976 – Irish rock band U2 forms in Dublin, Ireland.
 1977  The first Chicago Marathon takes place, with around 4,200 runners taking part.
 1978  A mid-air collision between two planes over San Diego, California results in 144 deaths.
 1981  Sandra Day O'Connor becomes the first female Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
 1981  Belize joins the UN.
 1983  The UK's biggest prison break-out since World War II occurs when 38 Republican prisoners at Maze Prison, armed with 6 handguns, hijack a prison meals lorry and smash their way out.
 1983  The TGV high-speed train track, from Paris to Lyon, is opened along its entire length.
 1992  NASA launches the Mars Observer to the planet Mars. It would fail 11 months later.
 1996  The last of the Magdalene Asylums closes in Ireland.
 1998  Mikulas Dzurinda becomes Prime Minister of Slovakia.
 2000  With the Islamic King Fahd Cultural Centre, the biggest Mosque in Latin America is opened in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

From 2001 
 2003  A magnitude 8 earthquake hits Hokkaido, Japan.
 2003  It is announced that 14,802 people died in France during the previous month's heatwave.
 2005  Fernando Alonso wins the Formula One world championship, becoming the youngest Formula One world champion in history at the time, though the record has since been beaten by Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel.
 2007  Yasuo Fukuda becomes Prime Minister of Japan.
 2008  Thabo Mbeki resigns as President of South Africa, and is replaced by Kgalema Motlanthe.
 2008  The Shenzhou spacecraft is launched by China.
 2009  In a joint television appearance at the G-20 Summit, Barack Obama, Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy accuse Iran of building a uranium enrichment facility.
 2010  Ed Miliband becomes leader of the British Labour Party.
 2017  Iraqi Kurdistan holds a vote on independence.
 2018  American comedian Bill Cosby is sentenced to between three and ten years in prison.
 2019  The Australian Capital Territory legalises cannabis for recreational use.

Births

Up to 1900 
 1358  Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, Japanese shogun (d. 1408)
 1403  Louis III of Naples (d. 1434)
 1525  Steven Borough, English explorer (d. 1584)
 1599  Francesco Borromini, Swiss-Italian architect (d. 1667)
 1613  Claude Perrault, French architect, physician and naturalist (d. 1688)
 1644  Ole Romer, Danish astronomer (d. 1710)
 1683  Jean-Philippe Rameau, French composer (d. 1764)
 1694  Henry Pelham, Prime Minister of Great Britain (d. 1754)
 1711  Qianlong, Chinese Emperor (d. 1799)
 1725  Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot, French steam vehicle pioneer (d. 1804)
 1729  Christian Gottlob Heyne, German classical scholar (d. 1812)
 1734  Cardinal de Rohan, French cardinal and Bishop of Strasbourg (d. 1803)
 1738  Nicholas Van Dyke, American lawyer and politician (d. 1789)
 1741  Wenzel Pichl, Czech composer, violinist, music director and writer (d. 1805)
 1744  Frederick William II of Prussia (d. 1797)
 1749  Abraham Gottlob Werner, German mineralogist (d. 1817)
 1764  Fletcher Christian, English mutineer (d. 1793)
 1766  Armand-Emmanuel de Vignerot du Plessis, Duc de Richelieu, French statesman (d. 1822)
 1773  Agostino Bassi, Italian naturalist, entomologist and botanist (d. 1856)
 1782  Charles Maturin, Irish dramatist and writer (d. 1824)
 1793  Felicia Hemans, British poet (d. 1835)
 1807  Alfred Vail, American engineer (d. 1859)
 1816  Georg August Rudolph, German politician, 3rd Mayor of Marburg (d. 1893)
 1825  Joachim Heer, Swiss politician (d. 1879)
 1829  Karl Alfred von Zittel, German palaeontologist (d. 1904)
 1860  John Hope, 1st Marquess of Linlithgow, 1st Governor-General of Australia (d. 1908)
 1862  Billy Hughes, Prime Minister of Australia (d. 1952)
 1866  Thomas Hunt Morgan, American geneticist (d. 1945)
 1867  Augusto de Vasconcelos, Prime Minister of Portugal (d. 1951)
 1877  Plutarco Elías Calles, President of Mexico (d. 1945)
 1879  Lope K. Santos, Filipino writer and labor leader (d. 1963)
 1881  Lu Xun, Chinese writer (d. 1936)
 1889  Charles Kenneth Scott Moncrieff, Scottish author (d. 1930)
 1896  Sandro Pertini, President of Italy (d. 1990)
 1897  William Faulkner, American writer (d. 1962)

1901  1950 
 1901  Robert Bresson, French director (d. 1999)
 1903  Mark Rothko, Latvian-American painter (d. 1970)
 1906  José Figueres Ferrer, Costa Rican politician (d. 1990)
 1906  Dmitri Shostakovich, Russian composer (d. 1975)
 1908  Jacqueline Audry, French director and screenwriter (d. 1977)
 1911  Eric Williams, 1st Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago (d. 1981)
 1914  Elena Lucena, Argentine actress (d. 2015)
 1915  Ethel Rosenberg, American executed for espionage (d. 1953)
 1917  Phil Rizzuto, American baseball player and sportscaster (d. 2007)
 1920  Sergei Bondarchuk, Ukrainian-born actor (d. 1994)
 1921  Robert Muldoon, 31st Prime Minister of New Zealand (d. 1992)
 1922  Hammer DeRoburt, 1st President of Nauru (d. 1992)
 1922  Roger Etchegaray, French cardinal (d. 2019)
 1923  Sam Rivers, American musician (d. 2011)
 1924  Ardhendu Bhushan Bardhan, Indian activist and politician (d. 2016)
 1925  Silvana Pampanini, Italian actress (d. 2016)
 1927  Colin Davis, British conductor (d. 2013)
 1929  Ronnie Barker, British comedian and actor (d. 2005)
 1929  Barbara Walters, American broadcaster
 1930  Nino Cerruti, Italian fashion designer
 1930  Shel Silverstein, American humorist, singer-songwriter and writer (d. 1999)
 1932  Jerry Medwin, Welsh footballer
 1932  Adolfo Suárez, former Prime Minister of Spain (d. 2014)
 1932  Glenn Gould, Canadian pianist (d. 1982)
 1934  Jean Sorel, French actor
 1935  Maj Sjöwall, Swedish writer
 1936  Juliet Prowse, South African actress and dancer (d. 1996)
 1936  Moussa Traoré, former President of Mali
 1938  Jonathan Motzfeldt, 1st Prime Minister of Greenland (d. 2010)
 1939  Feroz Khan, Indian actor (d. 2009)
 1939  Harald Ringstorff, German politician
 1939  Gianfranco Leoncini, Italian footballer (d. 2019)
 1939  Leon Brittan, English politician (d. 2015)
 1940  Takao Sakurai, Japanese boxer
 1942  John Taylor, American jazz musician (d. 2015)
 1942  Henri Pescarolo, French Formula One driver
 1943  Massimo Mattioli, Italian cartoonist (d. 2019)
 1943  Robert Walden, American actor
 1943  Robert Gates, American politician
 1944  Michael Douglas, American actor
 1944  José Sacal, Mexican sculptor (d. 2018)
 1945  Carol Vadnais, Canadian ice hockey player (d. 2014)
 1945  Dee Dee Warwick, American singer (d. 2008)
 1946  Felicity Kendal, British actress
 1947  Cheryl Tiegs, American model and actress
 1949  Steve Mackay, American saxophonist (d. 2015)
 1949  Pedro Almodóvar, Spanish filmmaker

1951  1975 
 1951  Mark Hamill, American actor
 1952  Bell hooks, American author, feminist and social activist
 1952  Christopher Reeve, American actor (d. 2004)
 1954  Sakis Boulas, Greek singer-songwriter (d. 2014)
 1954  Joep Lange, Dutch physician and academic (d. 2014)
 1954  Juande Ramos, Spanish football manager
 1955  Zucchero Fornaciari, Italian singer-songwriter and musician
 1955  Steven Severin, English musician, songwriter and producer
 1955  Peter Müller, German politician
 1955  Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, German footballer
 1956  Salvatore Bagni, Italian footballer
 1957  Vladimir Popovkin, Russian politician (d. 2014)
 1957  Michael Madsen, American actor and producer
 1960  Ihor Belanov, Soviet-Ukrainian footballer
 1960  Shinji Tanaka, Japanese footballer
 1961  Heather Locklear, American actress
 1961  Mark Gil, Filipino actor (d. 2014)
 1962  Aida Turturro, American actress
 1962  Dariusz Wdowczyk, Polish footballer and coach
 1963  Tate Donovan, American actor
 1963  Mikael Persbrandt, Swedish actor
 1964  Barbara Dennerlein, German jazz musician
 1965  Kenta Hasegawa, Japanese footballer
 1965  Scottie Pippen, American basketball player
 1966  Jason Flemyng, British actor
 1968  Will Smith, American actor and rapper
 1968  Prince Friso of Orange-Nassau, Prince of the Netherlands (d. 2013)
 1969  Catherine Zeta-Jones, Welsh actress
 1969  Hansie Cronje, South African cricketer (d. 2002)
 1969  Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal, American guitarist, songwriter and producer
 1971  Jessie Wallace, English actress
 1974  Richie Edwards, English singer-songwriter and guitarist
 1974  Víctor Pacheco, Colombian footballer
 1975  Declan Donnelly, English actor, television presenter and musician (Ant and Dec)

From 1976 
 1976  Petit, Portuguese footballer
 1976  Charlotte Ayanne, Puerto Rican actress and model
 1978  Ricardo Gardner, Jamaican footballer
 1978  Jodie Kidd, English model
 1978  Ryan Leslie, American music producer and singer-songwriter
 1979  Jason Koumas, Welsh footballer
 1980  Nikola Zigic, Serbian footballer
 1983  Donald Glover, American actor, rapper, producer and screenwriter
 1983  Yuhei Tokunaga, Japanese footballer
 1983  Glenn Murray, English footballer
 1984  Siphiwe Tshabalala, South African footballer
 1984  Matías Silvestre, Argentine footballer
 1986  John Barclay, Scottish rugby union player
 1988  Joe Prospero, English actor
 1989  Samantha Murray, English athlete
 1990  Mao Asada, Japanese figure skater
 1991  Emmy Clarke, American actress
 1992  Keauna McLaughlin, American figure skater
 1994  Jansen Panettiere, American actor
 1995  Ryan Beatty, American singer
 1995  Caitlin Fields, American figure skater
 1997  Suzanne Schulting, Dutch short-track speed skater

Deaths

Up to 1900 
 303  Saint Fermin of Pamplona
 1066  Tostig Godwinson, Earl of Northumbria (b. 1020)
 1066  King Harald III of Norway (b. 1015)
 1086  William VIII, Duke of Aquitaine (b. 1025)
 1333  Prince Morikuni, Japanese shogun (b. 1301)
 1496  Pietro Capponi, Italian soldier and statesman (b. 1447)
 1506  Philip I of Castile (b. 1478)
 1534  Pope Clement VII (b. 1478)
 1602  Caspar Peucer, German physician, scholar and reformer (b. 1525)
 1617  Emperor Go-Yozei of Japan (b. 1572)
 1617  Francisco Suarez, Spanish theologian (b. 1548)
 1630  Ambrogio Spinola, 1st Marquis of the Balbeses, Italian general and politician (b. 1569)
 1665  Archduchess Maria Anna of Austria (b. 1610)
 1777  Johann Heinrich Lambert, Swiss mathematician, physicist, philosopher and astronomer (b. 1728)
 1792  Adam Gottlob Moltke, Danish statesman (b. 1710)
 1794  Paul Rabaut, French Huguenot pastor (b. 1718)
 1849  Johann Strauss I, Austrian composer (b. 1804)
 1900  Félix-Gabriel Marchand, 11th Premier of Quebec (b. 1832)
 1900  John N. Palmer, 15th Governor of Illinois (b. 1817)

1901  2000 
 1901  Arthur Fremantle, English general (b. 1835)
 1918  Mikhail Vasilyevich Alekseyev, Russian general (b. 1857)
 1928  Richard F. Outcault, American cartoonist (b. 1863)
 1931  Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, German classical philologist (b. 1848)
 1933  Ring Lardner, American writer (b. 1885)
 1940  Marguerite Clark, American actress (b. 1883)
 1941  Foxall P. Keane, American polo player, golfer and racing driver (b. 1867)
 1944  Walter Breisky, Austrian politician (b. 1871)
 1958  John B. Watson, American psychologist (b. 1878)
 1960  Emily Post, American author (b. 1873)
 1970  Erich Maria Remarque, German writer (b. 1898)
 1971  Hugo Black, American politician and jurist (b. 1886)
 1979  Tapio Rautavaara, Finnish javelin thrower, actor and singer (b. 1915)
 1980  John Bonham, British musician (Led Zeppelin) (b. 1948)
 1980  Lewis Milestone, Russian-American director, producer and screenwriter (b. 1895)
 1983  King Leopold III of Belgium (b. 1901)
 1983  Gunnar Thoroddsen, Prime Minister of Iceland (b. 1910)
 1984  Walter Pidgeon, Canadian actor (b. 1897)
 1986  Nikolay Nikolayevich Semyonov, Russian chemist (b. 1896)
 1987  Mary Astor, American actress (b. 1906)
 1990  Prafulla Chandra Sen, Indian politician, Chief Minister of West Bengal (b. 1897)
 1991  Klaus Barbie, Nazi war criminal (b. 1913)
 1992  Joseph Arthur Ankrah, Ghanaian politician (b. 1947)
 1995  Annie Elizabeth Delany, American dentist and author (b. 1891)
 1996  Nicu Ceausescu, Romanian politician (b. 1951)

From 2001 
 2003  Franco Modigliani, Italian economist (b. 1918)
 2003  Edward Said, Palestinian-American critic (b. 1935)
 2005  Don Adams, American actor (b. 1923)
 2005  George Archer, American golfer (b. 1939)
 2007  Nobuo Matsunaga, Japanese footballer (b. 1921)
 2008  Derog Gioura, Nauruan politician (b. 1931)
 2009  Alicia de Larrocha, Spanish pianist (b. 1923)
 2010  Art Gilmore, American voice actor (b. 1912)
 2011  Wangari Maathai, Kenyan environmental and political activist, Nobel Peace Prize winner (b. 1940)
 2012  Andy Williams, American singer and entertainer (b. 1927)
 2014  Sulejman Tihic, Bosnian politician (b. 1951)
 2014  Ulrick Chérubin, Canadian politician (b. 1943)
 2014  Dorothy Tyler-Odam, English athlete (b. 1920)
 2015  Moti Kirschenbaum, Israeli television personality (b. 1939)
 2015  Claudio Baggini, Italian Roman Catholic prelate (b. 1936)
 2015  John Galvin, American general (b. 1929)
 2016  Arnold Palmer, American golfer (b. 1929)
 2016  David Padilla, President of Bolivia (b. 1927)
 2017  M. Cherif Bassiouni, Egyptian-American lawyer and human rights activist (b. 1937)
 2017  Antony Booth, English actor (b. 1931)
 2017  Nora Marks Dauenhauer, American author, poet and scholar (b. 1927)
 2017  Elizabeth Dawn, English actress (b. 1939)
 2017  Eman Ahmed Abd El Aty, Egyptian world's second-heaviest woman (b. 1980)
 2017  Helga Grebing, German historian (b. 1930)
 2017  Anatoly Gromyko, Soviet-Russian scientist and diplomat (b. 1932)
 2017  Bobby Knutt, English actor (b. 1945)
 2018  Helena Almeida, Portuguese photographer and painter (b. 1934)
 2018  Marie Colton, American politician (b. 1922)
 2018  Ivan Kapitanets, Soviet-Russian military officer (b. 1928)
 2018  Danny Lewicki, Canadian ice hockey player (b. 1931)
 2019  Jesper Hoffmeyer, Danish biologist (b. 1942)
 2019  Donald Nicholls, Baron Nicholls of Birkenhead, British peer (b. 1933)
 2019  Arne Weise, Swedish journalist and television personality (b. 1930)
 2019  Michael D. Coe, American archaeologist, anthropologist and author (b. 1929)

Observances 
 Armed Forces/Revolution Day (Mozambique)

Days of the year