What Happened Today in History on October 25

The Battle of Agincourt takes place during the Hundred Years' War, resulting in a significant English victory over the French.

George III becomes King of Great Britain at the age of 22, following the death of his grandfather, George II. He experienced behavioral changes after a fever around age 25 but he recovered. He suffered from other "mania" episodes in 1788, leading on to his final, permanent decline beginning in 1810, at the age of 72. He remained mentally unfit to rule for the last decade of his life.

Abigail Smith married a young lawyer from Braintree (now Quincy), Massachusetts, by the name of John Adams, who would become, some thirty years later, the second president of the United States. Abigail Adams who was both the wife and the mother of a president shares that distinction with Barbara Bush.

The Charge of the Light Brigade takes place during the Battle of Balaclava in the Crimean War, resulting in the loss of the Light Brigade, one of Britain’s most spectacular military disasters. It was memorialized by Alfred Lord Tennyson’s popular poem ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’, written just a few weeks after the battle. More

The United States defeats Spain in the Battle of Leyte Gulf, a decisive naval engagement during the Spanish-American War.

The October Revolution in Russia begins as the Bolshevik Party, led by Vladimir Lenin, seizes power in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg) where the Bolsheviks launched a nearly bloodless coup against the Provisional Government and eventually formed a new government with Lenin at its head.

King Alexander of Greece, dies from sepsis after developing infections from being bitten by a pet monkey about three weeks before. He had been walking through the grounds of the Tatoi estate. After the incident he king's wounds had been promptly cleaned and dressed but not cauterized. In those times, there was nothing available to treat infected wounds. He was 27 years old when he died.

The Teapot Dome scandal; Albert B. Fall, who served as secretary of the interior in President Warren G. Harding's cabinet, is found guilty of accepting a bribe while in office. More

Japan employs kamikaze bombers for the first time at the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the largest naval battle in history, which took place in the Pacific Ocean near the Philippines. Kamikaze strikes against Allied warships continued throughout World and were costly to both sides. War II. More

U.S President Dwight Eisenhower pledges support and aid to South Vietnam President Ngo Dinh Diem. The decision was rooted in the Cold War belief in the "domino effect," where the fall of South Vietnam to communism could lead to other neighboring nations to fall.  Expand +

The United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 2758, which “restored” the People's Republic of China to the Chinese seat at the UN and “expelled” the Republic of China (Taiwan). Since then, Taiwan has sought to maintain its international space without the benefits of UN membership. More

The United States invades Grenada, known as Operation Urgent Fury, in response to a coup. More

Typhoon Morakot strikes Taiwan, causing significant flooding and landslides.