History of the Day for:
January 25
- 1533: England's King Henry VIII secretly married his second wife, Anne Boleyn.
- 1787: Shays' Rebellion suffered a setback when debt-ridden farmers, led by Captain Daniel Shays, failed to capture an arsenal at Springfield, Mass.
- 1858: The wedding of Princess Victoria, eldest daughter of Queen Victoria, was the first to incorporate Wagner's "Bridal Chorus" and Mendelssohn's "Wedding March" into the ceremony.
- 1870: The soda fountain was patented by Gustavus Dows.
- 1890: The United Mine Workers of America was founded; reporter Nellie Bly (Elizabeth Cochrane) of the New York World completed a round-the-world journey in 72 days, 6 hours and 11 minutes.
- 1915: Alexander Graham Bell, inaugurated U.S. transcontinental phone service with a call made between New York and San Francisco, where Dr. Watson answered.
- 1924: The first Winter Olympics were held in Chamonix, France.
- 1937: NBC Radio presented the first broadcast of "The Guiding Light." The program became the longest-running story line in daytime drama.
- 1940: Nazis decreed the establishment of Jewish ghetto in Lodz, Poland.
- 1945: World War II: Battle of the Bulge ends.
- 1945: Grand Rapids, Mich., became the first U.S. community to fluoridate water.
- 1947: American gangster Al Capone died in Miami Beach at age 48.
- 1949: The first Emmys were presented at the Hollywood Athletic Club.
- 1955: Columbia University scientists developed an atomic clock accurate to within one second in 300 years.
- 1961: President Kennedy held the first presidential news conference carried live on radio and television.
- 1970: Robert Altman's "MASH," starring Donald Sutherland and Elliott Gould, premiered.
- 1971: Charles Manson and three female members of his "family" were found guilty of one count of conspiracy to commit murder and seven counts of murder in the first degree and were sentenced to life imprisonment.
- 1974: Dr. Christian Barnard transplanted the first human heart without the removal of the old one.
- 1981: The 52 Americans held hostage by Iran for 444 days arrived in the United States.
- 1989: In his fifth season, Michael Jordan scored his 10,000th point, the second fastest NBA climb to that position behind Wilt Chamberlain.
- 1993: Sears announced it would close its catalog sales department after taking orders for 97 years.
- 1994: Accused of molesting a 13-year-old boy, Michael Jackson settled a civil lawsuit out of court.
- 1994: The Clementine space probe launches.
- 1995: The Norwegian Rocket Incident: Russia almost launches a nuclear attack after it mistakes Black Brant XII, a Norwegian research rocket, for a US Trident missile.
- 1996: Billy Bailey became the last person to be hanged in the United States of America.
- 1998: During a historic visit to Cuba Pope John Paul II demands the release of political prisoners and political reforms while condemning US attempts to isolate the country.
- 1998: Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) suicide attack on Sri Lanka's Temple of the Tooth, killing 8 people injuring 25 others.
- 1999: A 6.0 Richter scale earthquake hits western Colombia killing at least 1,000.
- 2001: A 50-year-old Douglas DC-3 crashes near Ciudad Bolivar, Venezuela killing 24.
- 2002: Wikipedia switches to the new version of its software ("Phase II") aka Magnus Manske Day.
- 2004: Opportunity rover (MER-B) lands on surface of Mars.
- 2005: A stampede at the Mandher Devi temple in Mandhradevi in India kills at least 258.
- 2006: Three independent observing campaigns announce the discovery of OGLE-2005-BLG-390Lb through gravitational microlensing, the first cool rocky/icy extrasolar planet around a main-sequence star.
- 2009: Michael Jackson dies at the age of 50.