NOW & THEN
25 OCTOBER
1415: Battle of Agincourt, at which England’s longbowmen defeated the French knights during the Hundred Years’ War.
1586: Death sentence was pronounced against Mary Queen of Scots.
1666: Quadruple Alliance was signed by Holland, Brandenburg, Brunswick and Denmark.
1854: Lord Cardigan led the infamous Charge of the Light Brigade in the Battle of Balaclava during the Crimean War.
1874: Britain annexed Fiji Islands.
1900: Britain annexed the former Boer Republic and renamed it the Transvaal Colony.
1901: Joseph Chamberlain, colonial affairs secretary, made an anti-german speech in Edinburgh which led to a breakdown of the British-german Alliance.
1918: The Canadian Pacific liner Princess Sophia was wrecked off Alaska with the loss of 343 lives.
1936: Germany and Italy formed the Rome-berlin Axis.
1938: Libya was declared part of Italy.
1941: Germany’s first offensive against Moscow in the Second World War failed.
1951: Conservatives won general election with 321 seats (Labour 295) and Winston Churchill became prime minister. It was the beginning of 13 years of Tory power. One of the unsuccessful Tories was Margaret Roberts (Thatcher), at 26 the youngest candidate to stand at a general election.
1956: Egypt, Jordan and Syria formed a unified military command.
1961: First issue of Private Eye was published.
1971: UN admitted China and expelled Nationalist Chinese.
1974: Foreign ministers of 19 Arab countries met in Rabat, Morocco, and voted for strong support for the Palestine Liberation Organisation.
1983: Six guests and hotel workers were killed and 15 injured when the Royal Darroch Hotel at Cults, Aberdeen, was destroyed by a gas explosion.
1984: Catherine Deneuve chosen as France’s fifth Marianne,
symbol of the French Republic whose bust is displayed in French town halls.
1987: Indian peacekeeping forces wrested control of most of Jaffna, Sri Lanka, but still faced Tamil rebel snipers.
1989: Soviet State Bank announced the rouble would be devalued by nearly 90 per cent for tourists and businessmen.
1989: Britain decided to repatriate 40,000 Vietnamese refugees from Hong Kong.
1990: Kazakh republic declared sovereignty from Soviet government.
1990: Polly Peck International, one of Britain’s top 100 firms, with debts of more than £1.3 billion, called in administrators.
1992: About 100,000 people demonstrated in London against the government’s planned pit closures.
2007: Oil giant BP was fined a total of £182 million by US Department of Justice over a Texas refinery explosion in which 15 people died, and a price-fixing scam.
2009: Bombings in Baghdad killed 155 and wounded more than 700.
BIRTHDAYS
Jon Anderson, British rock singer (Yes), 77; Glynis Barber, actress (Dempsey and Makepeace), 66; Phil Daniels, actor, 63; Adam Goldberg, American actor, 51; Nick Hancock, TV presenter, 59; Steve Hodge, footballer, 59; Fred Housego, Dundee-born taxi driver and Mastermind winner, 77; Katy Perry, US singer, 37; Anne Tyler, novelist (The Accidental Tourist), 80; Russell Anderson, Scottish footballer, 43; Darron Gibson, footballer, 34; Princess Elisabeth of Belgium, Duchess of Brabant, 20; Robbie Macintosh, guitarist (The Pretenders), 64; Roy Lynes, musician (Status Quo), 78.
ANNIVERSARIES
Births: 1881 Pablo Picasso, artist; 1886 Leo G Carroll, actor; 1917 Oliver Tambo, African National Congress president; 1931 Jimmy Mcilroy MBE, footballer; 1936 The Rt Hon Sir Martin Gilbert CBE, British historian.
Deaths: 1992 Roger Miller, singer-songwriter; 1993 Vincent Price, actor; 1995 Bobby Riggs, tennis player; 2002 Richard Harris, actor; 2004 John Peel, broadcaster; 2013 Nigel Davenport, British actor; 2014 Jack Bruce, Bishopbriggs-born rock musician (Cream); 2017 Fats Domino, US R&B singer and pianist.