page_title: February 25
section_title: Events
hierarchical_section_title: February 25 / Events
context_page_description: February 25 is the 56th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. 309 days remain until the end of the year.
  It is the feast day of Saint Walpurga and is a day of national significance in Hungary, Kuwait, the Philippines and Suriname. Among famous events on the day have been the patent for Samuel Colt's revolver; the first African American sworn into the United States Senate; Hitler obtaining German citizenship so he could run for public office; the construction in an Islington garden of the first Anderson shelter; Nikita Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin; and the disbandment of the Warsaw Pact.
  People born on 25 February include José de San Martín, the first President of Peru; Impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir; operatic tenor Enrico Caruso; actor Tom Courtenay; musician George Harrison; and eight-time Olympic champion Birgit Fischer.
context_section_description: 138 – Roman emperor Hadrian adopts Antoninus Pius as his son, effectively making him his successor.
  628 – Khosrow II, the last great Shah of the Sasanian Empire (Iran), is overthrown by his son Kavadh II.
  1336 – Four thousand defenders of Pilenai commit mass suicide rather than be taken captive by the Teutonic Knights.
  1836 – Samuel Colt is granted a United States patent for his revolver firearm.
  1843 – Lord George Paulet occupies the Kingdom of Hawaii in the name of Great Britain in the Paulet Affair (1843).
  1870 – Hiram Rhodes Revels, a Republican from Mississippi, is sworn into the United States Senate, becoming the first African American ever to sit in Congress.
  1875 – Guangxu Emperor of Qing dynasty China begins his reign, under Empress Dowager Cixi's regency.
  1912 – Marie-Adélaïde, the eldest of six daughters of Guillaume IV, becomes the first reigning Grand Duchess of Luxembourg.
  1916 – In the Battle of Verdun, a German unit captures Fort Douaumont, keystone of the French defences, without a fight.
  1918 – German forces capture Tallinn to virtually complete the occupation of Estonia.
  1921 – Georgian capital Tbilisi falls to the invading Russian forces after heavy fighting and the Russians declare the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic.
  1932 – Hitler, having been stateless for seven years, obtains German citizenship when he is appointed a Brunswick state official by Dietrich Klagges, a fellow Nazi. As a result, Hitler is able to run for Reichspräsident in the 1932 election.
  1933 – Launch of the USS Ranger at Newport News, Virginia. It is the first purpose-built aircraft carrier to be commissioned by the US Navy.
  1939 – As part of British air raid precautions, the first of 2.5 million Anderson shelters is constructed in a garden in Islington, north London.
  1941 – The outlawed Communist Party of the Netherlands organises a general strike in German-occupied Amsterdam to protest against Nazi persecution of Dutch Jews.
  1947 – The formal abolition of Prussia is proclaimed by the Allied Control Council, the Prussian government having already been abolished by the Preußenschlag of 1932.
  1948 – In a coup d'état led by Klement Gottwald, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia takes control of government in Prague to end the Third Czechoslovak Republic.
  1951 – The first Pan American Games are officially opened in Buenos Aires by Argentine President Juan Perón.
  1956 – In his speech On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences, Nikita Khrushchev, leader of the Soviet Union, denounces Stalin.
  1980 – The government of Suriname is overthrown by a military coup led by Dési Bouterse.
  1986 – People Power Revolution: President of the Philippines Ferdinand Marcos flees the nation after 20 years of rule; Corazon Aquino becomes the Philippines' first woman president.
  1991 – Disbandment of the Warsaw Pact at a meeting of its members in Budapest.
caption: Sir Christopher Wren, died 25 February 1723
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