February 25
1570 Pope Pius V issue the bull Regnans in Excelsis which excommunicates Queen Elizabeth I of England. He declares her a usurper for her severe persecution of Roman Catholics in England; the last such judgment made against a reigning monarch by any pope. (Bradley)
1601 Death: Robert Devereux, the second Earl of Essex and former favourite of Queen Elizabeth I; beheaded in the Tower of London for high treason. Note: Being the Favorite of Elizabeth was a risky proposition. Sir Walter Raleigh, who once referred to her as 'a professional virgin,' was another Tower occupant of long standing before his eventual execution.
1642 In New Netherland, North America, Dutch settlers slaughter a group of lower Hudson Valley Indians who had sought refuge from Mohawk attackers. (Bradley)
1778 Jose Francisco de San Martin is born in Yapeyu, an Indian settlement in what is now northern Argentina. (Bradley)
1723 Death: Sir Christopher Wren, English architect, designer of St Pauls Cathedral.
1781 US Revolutionary War: American General Nathaniel Greene crosses the Dan River on his way to attack Cornwallis. "...The chief theatre of war continued to be in the South, where it was prosecuted with energy during a greater portion of 1781. On the 30th of October, 1780, General Nathaniel Greene was appointed to succeed Gates in command of the troops in the Southern States. Congress, perceiving their folly in making the Southern Department independent, gave Greene all the power which they had conferred upon their favorite, but "subject to the control of the commander-in-chief." This unity of the military forces had a most salutary effect. Greene hastened southward; and leaving Steuben in Virginia, to collect and forward troops, he reached Charlotte on the 2nd of December, where he received a complaint from Cornwallis concerning the ten Tory prisoners who were hung on the tulip tree at King's Mountain. That complaint Greene quickly silenced, by sending to the earl a list of full fifty patriots who had been hanged by his orders, in South Carolina, because they were patriots; at the same time he avowed his determination to be governed by the principles of humanity, whatever the British commander might do to the contrary. Greene and his subordinates adhered to this principle, while the British leaders ridiculed the idea of extending mercy to the "rebels," whom they held to be traitors to the king and deserving of death. One of the most noted of the executors of the British will, in this regard, was Colonel William Cunningham, who was ordered by Colonel Balfour at Charleston to carry terror into the interior of South Carolina. At the head of a hundred and fifty white men and negroes, he carried out these orders during the winter of 1781. He killed every person suspected of being favorable to the American cause, and burned their houses. Full a hundred persons were murdered by this British agent, with the approval of his masters. General Greene, with his usual energy, at once prepared to fight or pursue the enemy, as circumstances might require. He arranged his army in two divisions. With the main force he took post at Cheraw, east of the Pedee River, and sent General Daniel Morgan, the heroic leader at Saratoga, with about a thousand men, to occupy the country near the junction of the Broad and Pacolet rivers in Western South Carolina. Cornwallis, who was just preparing to march into North Carolina again, now found himself in a position of danger, for he was between two hostile forces..."
1791 President George Washington signs a bill creating the Bank of the United States. Note: The bill in question had been authored by Alexander Hamilton.
1804 Thomas Jefferson is nominated for president at the Democratic-Republican caucus; the first party endorsement in American political history.
1815 Naploeon Bonaparte escapes his exile on the island of Elba, returning to France.
1831 Battle of Grochow: The Polish army halts the Russian advance into their country.
1836 Samuel Colt first patents the revolving barrel multi-shot firearm, which will become known as the Colt 45.
1841 Birth: Pierre Auguste Renoir, French painter and founder of the French Impressionist movement.
1862 US Civil War: Abraham Lincoln authorizes the issuance of a new US currency called 'green backs'.
1862 US Civil War: Confederate troops abandon Nashville, Tennessee, in the face of Grant's advance.
1865 US Civil War: General Joseph E. Johnston replaces John Bell Hood as Commander of the Confederate Army of Tennessee.
1888 Birth: John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State to President Eisenhower. "...For six years John Foster Dulles dominated both the making and the conduct of United States foreign policy. In the realm of foreign affairs he was President Eisenhower's chief adviser, his chief representative on Capitol Hill and his chief agent and negotiator at home and abroad. Mr. Dulles was a highly controversial Secretary of State. Those who followed his career were rarely dispassionate; they divided, usually, between ardent admirers and those who disliked or distrusted him. Certain things, however, were incontestable. First was the extent of his role. He was undoubtedly the strongest personality of the Eisenhower Cabinet, and as such he constantly played a leading role in Washington and often in the councils of the Western alliance. Secondly, whatever his qualities as a policy-maker, he had few peers as an advocate. No one could equal him as a persuader in the White House councils. In facing the Senate Foreign Relations Committee he sometimes encountered criticism and skepticism, but he inevitably had his way. Thirdly, he had extraordinary..."
1895 Birth: Rudolf von Eschwege, German fighter ace in WW1. "...Rudolf von Eschwege was the only German fighter pilot on World War I's Macedonian Front, but in a little more than a year the intrepid and resourceful flier achieved 20 victories..."
1901 The United States Steel Corporation is incorporated in the state of New Jersey by J.P. Morgan in defiance of the Sherman Anti-trust Law. One-seventh of the total capitalization goes to the men who arrange the intricate deal. Morgan, himself, is said to have made $80 million. (Schlesinger I)
1903 Death: Richard Gatling, US inventor of the rapid-fire Gatling Gun.
1907 The US proclaims protectorate over the Dominican Republic.
1910 The Dalai Lama flees for his life from the Chinese and takes refuge in India.
1913 British Suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst goes on trial for a bomb attack on the home of David Lloyd George, Chancellor of the Exchequer.
1913 The 16th Amendment becomes law in the United States. Earlier, the Supreme Court had found that an income tax whose monies are not reapportioned to the states is unconstitutional. The 16th amendment provides the necessary legal basis for a graduated federal income tax. (Schlesinger I)
1915 WW1: The outer Turkish forts are silenced and Allied vessels enter the Dardanelles.
1917 WW1: General Khabalov issues a police proclamation forbidding all assemblies in the streets of Petrograd and warning that his troops have been ordered to use their weapons to maintain order. Only hours later, 300 people are killed near Nicholas Station.
1920 Volkishness: Philipp Stauff continues operation of the List Society at its new headquarters in Berlin. From his home at Moltkestrasse 46a in Berlin-Lichterfelde, Stauff publishes new editions of Guido von List's Ario-Germanic researches until 1922. (Roots)
1926 Poland demands a permanent seat on the League of Nations council.
1932 Weimar: Adolf Hitler, who was born in Austria, is appointed to the Brunswick Office of Agriculture and Land Survey as the attache for the Brunswick Legation in Berlin. He is supposed to be responsible for representing the economic interests of the province, but it is in reality a scam to make Hitler a German citizen. (Maser)
1933 Sir Arthur Wauchope, British High Commissioner of Palestine, rejects Arab demands that would make the sale of Arab lands to Jews illegal.
1934 The German Association of Jewish War Veterans declares loyalty to Germany in honor of the 12,000 Jews who died fighting for Germany in WW1.
1934 Leopold III is crowned king of Belgium.
1939 WW2: On this day the first Anderson air-raid shelter is built in Islington, North london; the first of 2.5 million of them.
1941 WW2: Press Reaction to Hitler's Feb 24 Speech: "His address, both in form and substance, differed little from past utterances...delivered at the top of his voice...Hitler's claim that 215,000 tons of shipping had been sunk during the forty-eight hours preceding his speech was only another of the fantasies which are so frequently voiced in German communiques. It was learned in London...that there was no truth whatsoever in the claim."--London Times
1941 WW2: Press Reaction to Hitler's Feb 24 Speech: "It was considered significant, however, that he did not mention the Balkans or an invasion of Britain; that he made no promise to end the war this year and that he refrained from attacking the United States for its aid to Britain....Hitler's utterances contained nothing truly programmatic. He merely repeated what he had announced on January 30, namely, that this war would gather momentum in the Spring."--New York Times.
1943 WW2: US troops retake the Kasserine Pass in Tunisia, where they had been defeated five days before.
1944 WW2: US forces destroyed 135 Japanese planes in Marianas and Guam.
1952 French colonial forces evacuate Hoa Binh in Indochina.
1956 Russian Premier Nikita Krushchev sensationally denounces Stalin's excesses to the 20th Communist Party Conference in the USSR. "...We have to consider seriously and analyze correctly this matter in order that we may preclude any possibility of a repetition in any form whatever of what took place during the life of Stalin, who absolutely did not tolerate collegiality in leadership and in work, and who practiced brutal violence, not only toward everything which opposed him, but also toward that which seemed, to his capricious and despotic character, contrary to his concepts. Stalin acted not through persuasion, explanation and patient cooperation with people, but by imposing his concepts and demanding absolute submission to his opinion. Whoever opposed these concepts or tried to prove his [own] viewpoint and the correctness of his [own] position was doomed to removal from the leadership collective and to subsequent moral and physical annihilation. This was especially true during the period following the 17th Party Congress, when many prominent Party leaders and rank-and-file Party workers, honest and dedicated to the cause of Communism, fell victim to Stalin's despotism..."
1956 Writer and poet Sylvia Plath meets English poet Ted Hughes at a party. She immediately bites him on the cheek, drawing blood. They will wed four months later and remain together until she kills herself in 1963.
1958 The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) is launched.
1961 US President John F. Kennedy names Henry Kissinger as a security adviser.
1976 The US Supreme Court rules that states may ban the hiring of illegal aliens.
1994 Death: Baruch Goldstein, physician. After being accused of murdering 53 (actually 29) people in a mosque at Hebron, the Israeli terrorist is lynched by a huge mob.
1998 Switzerland's first legal brothel opens in Zurich.
2001 British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon declares the new United States government is considering extending its planned 'missile shield' to cover Britain.
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