history at a glance

TODAY is Sunday October 25 the 299th day of the year. There are 67 days left in the year.

Highlights in history on this date:

1944 – World War II: Battle of Leyte Gulf — the largest naval battle in history, takes place in and around the Philippines between the Imperial Japanese Navy and the U.S. Third and U.S. Seventh Fleets. Afterward is the first Kamikaze attack of the war.

1945 – The Republic of China takes over administration of Taiwan following Japan’s surrender to the Allies. 1962 – Cuban missile crisis: Adlai Stevenson shows photos at a meeting of the United Nations Security

Council proving that Soviet missiles are installed in Cuba.

1962 – Nelson Mandela is sentenced to five years in prison.

1971 – The United Nations seats the People’s Republic of China and expels the Republic of China

1980 – Proceedings on the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction conclude at The Hague.

1983 – Operation Urgent Fury: The United States and its Caribbean allies invade Grenada, six days after

Prime Minister Maurice Bishop and several of his supporters are executed in a coup d’état. 1991 – History of Slovenia: Three months after the end of the Ten-Day War, the last soldier of the Yugoslav

People’s Army leaves the territory of the Republic of Slovenia.

1995 – A commuter train slams into a school bus in Fox River Grove, Illinois, killing seven students. 1997 – After a brief civil war which has driven President Pascal Lissouba out of Brazzaville, Denis Sassou

Nguesso proclaims himself the President of the Republic of the Congo.

1999 – Reigning U.S. Open golf champion Payne Stewart died when his private Lear jet lost cabin pressure.

The plane flew on until it ran out of fuel, then crashed.

2004 – Cuban President Fidel Castro announces that transactions using the American Dollar will be banned. 2009 – The October 2009 Baghdad bombings kills 155 and wounds at least 721.