On April 25, 1945, the United Nations Conference on International Organization began in San Francisco.
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On April 25, 1908, Edward R. Murrow, the influential American radio and television broadcaster during the industry's early years, was born. Following his death on April 27, 1965, his obituary appeared in The Times.
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On This Date
| 1792 | Highwayman Nicolas Jacques Pelletier became the first person under French law to be executed by guillotine. |
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| 1859 | Ground was broken for the Suez Canal. |
| 1874 | Radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi was born in Bologna, Italy. |
| 1898 | The United States declared war on Spain. |
| 1901 | New York became the first state to require automobile license plates. |
| 1915 | Allied soldiers invaded the Gallipoli Peninsula in an unsuccessful attempt to take the Ottoman Turkish Empire out of World War I. |
| 1945 | U.S. and Soviet forces linked up on the Elbe River, in central Europe, a meeting that dramatized the collapse of Nazi Germany. |
| 1945 | Delegates from some 50 countries met in San Francisco to organize the United Nations. |
| 1959 | The St. Lawrence Seaway opened to shipping. |
| 1972 | Polaroid Corp. introduced its SX-70 folding camera, which ejected self-developing photographs. |
| 1990 | Violeta Barrios de Chamorro was inaugurated as president of Nicaragua, ending 11 years of leftist Sandinista rule. |
| 1990 | The Hubble Space Telescope was deployed from the space shuttle Discovery. |
| 1992 | Islamic forces took control of most of the Afghan capital Kabul following the collapse of the Communist government. |
| 2007 | The Dow Jones industrial average topped 13,000 for the first time, ending the day at 13,089.89. |
| 2011 | President Bashar Assad of Syria sent the military into the southern city of Daraa, where an anti-government uprising had begun the previous month. |
Historic Birthdays
Edward R. Murrow
4/25/1908 - 4/27/1965
American radio and television broadcaster.Go to obituary »
| 59 |
Oliver Cromwell 4/25/1599 - 9/3/1658 English soldier and statesman; Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland (1653-8) |
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| 53 |
Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky 4/25/1840(O.S.) - 10/25/1893(O.S.) Russian composer |
| 90 |
John Frank Stevens 4/25/1853 - 6/2/1943 American chief civil engineer of the Panama Canal (1905-7) |
| 89 |
Howard Garis 4/25/1873 - 11/6/1962 American creator of the Uncle Wiggily series of children's stories |
| 63 |
Guglielmo Marconi 4/25/1874 - 7/20/1937 Italian Nobel Prize-winning physicist and inventor (1909) |
| 58 |
Wolfgang Pauli 4/25/1900 - 12/15/1958 Austrian-born Nobel Prize-winning physicist (1945) |
| 91 |
William Brennan 4/25/1906 - 7/24/1997 American associate justice of the Supreme Court (1956-90) |
| 82 |
Claude Mauriac 4/25/1914 - 3/22/1996 French novelist, journalist and critic |
| 79 |
Ella Fitzgerald 4/25/1917 - 6/15/1996 American jazz singer |
