October 25

285 – Crispin and Crispinian are martyred by Governor Rictus Varus of Gaul on order of Emperor Diocletian

1147 – During the Reconquista, crusader knights retake Lisbon after a 4 month long siege.

1415 – The army of Henry V of England, mostly light armored infantry and archers, defeats the heavily armored French cavalry in the Battle of Agincourt, during the Hundred Years War.

1760 – George III succeeds to the British throne on the death of his grandfather, George II.

1812 – The American frigate, USS United States, commanded by Stephen Decatur, captures the British frigate HMS Macedonian commanded by John Surman Carden, south of the Azores islands.

1854 – At Balaklava in the Crimea, after an ineffective cavalry charge of the British Heavy Brigade, the British Light Brigade is ordered to charge but is pointed in the wrong direction, suffering heavy casualties after heading down a valley defended by massed Russian artillery.

1921 – Bartholemew ‘Bat’ Masterson dies at his desk from a massive heart attack after writing what became his final column for the New York Morning Telegraph

1940 – Benjamin O. Davis Sr. is promoted the first African American General Officer in the U.S. Army.

1944 – The main force of the U.S. Navy sights and re-engages the main force of the Japanese Navy in the Surigao Straight and off Samar Island in the Phillipines

1962 – U.S Ambassador Adlai Stevenson shows the United Nations Security Council reconnaissance photographs of Soviet ballistic missiles deployed in Cuba.

1968 – Northeast Airlines Flight 946, a Fairchild F-27,  crashes into Moose Mountain while on approach to Lebanon Municipal Airport in Lebanon, New Hampshire, killing 30 of the 39 passengers and 2 of the 3 crew members aboard.

1973 – Egypt and Israel accept a United Nations Security Council Resolution  calling for a ceasefire of the Yom Kippur War.

1983 – United States and Caribbean coalition forces begin Operation Urgent Fury, the invasion of the island of Grenada, 6 days after Prime Minister Maurice Bishop and several of his supporters are executed in a coup d’état by Cuban backed communist forces.

1994 – U.S Navy F-14 pilot Lieutenant Kara Hultgreen is killed when her plane crashes on landing approach to USS Abraham Lincoln off San Diego.

1995 – A Cary-Grove High School bus driver fails to clear the tracks near Fox River Grove, Illinois, and the bus is struck by a Metra Union Pacific/ Northwest Line commuter train, enroute to Chicago, killing 7 students and injuring 24 more.

1999 – A SunJet Aviation chartered Learjet 35, enroute from Orlando, Florida, to Dallas, Texas, looses pressure shortly after takeoff, incapacitating and likely killing the 4 passengers, including Springfield, Missouri born golfer Payne Stewart, and 2 crew aboard, then crashes near Aberdeen, South Dakota, when it finally runs out of fuel nearly 4 hours later.

2001 – Microsoft releases Windows XP

2009 – Targeting the Ministry of Justice and the Baghdad Provincial Council building, Al Qaida suicide bombers detonate 2 car bombs, killing 155 Iraqis and wounding at least 721 more people, among which were 3 American contractors.

2013 – Actor and stuntman Hal Needham dies in Los Angeles, age 82.