Feb 25 in History

1570 — Pope Pius V excommunicates “Elizabeth, the pretended Queen of England and the servant of crime”.

1778 — Jose Francisco de San Martin, Argentine general and liberator of Argentina, Chile and Peru, is born in Yapeyú.

1836 — Samuel Colt patents the first revolving-barrel multi-shot (five to six) firearm.

1841 — Pierre-Auguste Renoir, French Impressionist painter, is born in Limoges.

1899 — Paul (Julius Freiherr von) Reuter, 82, German-born founder of the (British) Reuters news agency in 1851, dies in Nice, France.

1943 — George Harrison, lead guitarist of the Beatles, singer-songwriter, music and film producer, is born in Liverpool, England.

1980 — Sixteen army sergeants overthrow the Suriname government in a violent coup.

1983 — Tennessee Williams, 71, playwright (“A Streetcar Named Desire”, “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”), is found dead in his NYC hotel suite.

1984 — In Cubatao, Sao Paulo, Brazil, an explosion from a leak in a gasoline pipeline burns down a shantytown with more than 500 deaths.

1986 — President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines, accused of accumulating billions of dollars during his 20-year rule, flees Malacañang Palace for Hawaii in the wake of tainted elections. Imelda Marcos leaves behind more than 2 700 pairs of shoes in her closet.

1996 — Dr Haing S Ngor, 55, gynaecologist, obstetrician, author and Oscar winner as best supporting actor for the 1984 film “The Killing Fields” (he lived through Cambodia’s mass killings in the 1970s under the Khmer Rouge regime), is shot dead in front of his home in Los Angeles. In 1998 three reputed members of Oriental Lazy Boyz street gang (one 20- and two 21-year-olds) receive life sentences for the murder.

1997 — A jury in Media, Pennsylvania, convicts multimillionaire John E du Pont of the murder of Olympic and world champion wrestler Dave Schultz, 36, on January 25 1996. Dave and his brother Mark both won gold medals in wrestling at the 1984 Olympic Games and were recruited to help coach US wrestlers at Du Pont’s Foxcatcher centre. He is sentenced to 13 to 30 years in prison.

2003 — In Nigeria cars and buses grind to a halt in Africa’s leading oil-producing country, gripped by its worst fuel shortage since military rule ended in 1999, after a recent strike caused panic buying.

2004 — The Mel Gibson film “The Passion of the Christ” premieres on Ash Wednesday.