April 25th is

DNA Day *

Hug a Plumber Day

Malaria Awareness Day

Red Hat Society Day *

Zucchini Bread Day

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MORE! Edward R. Murrow, Ella Fitzgerald and Robert Noyce, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Australia, Christmas Island, Cocos Islands, Cook Islands, New Zealand, Niue, Northfolk Island and Tonga  – ANZAC Day *

Bhutan –
Zhabdrung Kuchhoe Memorial Day

Egypt – Sinai Liberation Day

Faroe Islands – Flag Day

Italy – Liberation Day

North Korea –
People’s Army Foundation Day

Portugal –
Dia do 25 de Abril (Liberation Day)

Vietnam – Gio to Hung Vuong Day

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On This Day in HISTORY

404 BCE – When the Spartan fleet threatens to cut Athens off from its grain source, the Athenian fleet rushes after them. Through cunning strategy, Lysander defeats the Athenian fleet at the Battle of Aegospotami, destroying 168 ships and capturing some three or four thousand Athenian sailors. Only 12 Athenian ships escape, several sailing to Cyprus, carrying the “strategos” (general) Conon, who wants to avoid facing the judgment of the Athenian Assembly. After months of food shortages, Athens chooses surrender over starvation on this day

Greek Trireme

1644 – The Chongzhen Emperor, the last Emperor of Ming dynasty China, commits suicide during a peasant rebellion led by Li Zicheng

1792 – Highwayman Nicolas J. Pelletier becomes the first person executed by guillotine

1829 – Charles Fremantle arrives in HMS Challenger off the Australia’s western coast

1840 – Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky born, major Russian composer

1853 – John F. Stevens born, American chief civil engineer of the Panama Canal

1859 – British and French engineers break ground for the Suez Canal

1873 – Howard Garis born, American author of the Uncle Wiggily children’s stories

1892 – Maud Hart Lovelace born, American author of historical novels and children’s books; best remembered for her Betsy-Tacy series, loosely based on her childhood

1900 – Edith Gregor Halpert born in Russia, American art dealer, influential owner of The Downtown Gallery, NYC’s Greenwich Village, early supporter of Modern Art, showcasing Stuart Davis, Georgia O’Keeffe, Arthur Dove, Jacob Lawrence and many others

1901 – New York becomes the first U.S. state to require automobile license plates

1906 – Sally Salminen born, Åland-Finnish author and novelist; her best-known work, Katrina, was written in Swedish

1908 – Edward R. Murrow born, influential American radio and television broadcaster during the industry’s early years

1914 – Claude Mauriac born, French novelist, journalist and critic

1916 – ANZAC Day * is commemorated on the first anniversary of the landing at ANZAC Cove by Australian and New Zealand Army Corps who fought at Gallipoli during WWI

1917 – Ella Fitzgerald born, American jazz singer, known as the “First Lady of Song” and the “Queen of Jazz”- 13 Grammy Awards, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the National Medal of Arts

1918 – Astrid Varnay born in Sweden, dramatic soprano, one of the leading Wagnerian sopranos of her time with Birgit Nilsson and Martha Modl

1923 – Albert King born, American blues guitarist

1939 – Dame Veronica Sutherland born, British career diplomat, Ambassador to Ireland (1995-1999); appointed as President of Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge (2001-2008)

1942 – Ruby Doris Smith-Robinson born, American civil rights activist, prominent member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the only woman to serve as the SNCC executive secretary

1944 – The United Negro College Fund is incorporated

1945 – Fifty nations gather in San Francisco to begin the United Nations Conference on International Organization

1953 – DNA Day *- Francis Crick and James Watson publish Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid describing the double helix structure of DNA

1954 – Bell Telephone Laboratories. demonstrates the first practical solar cell

1959 – The Saint Lawrence Seaway, linking the North American Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean, officially opens to shipping.

1961 – Robert Noyce, American engineer, patents an integrated circuit; later co-founds Fairchild Semiconductor (1957) and Intel Corporation (1968)

1974 – Steely Dan’s “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number” is released

 1987 – The U2 album Joshua Tree becomes #1 on the U.S. album chart; it will sell over 25 million copies, and win a Grammy for Album of the Year

1990 – Violeta Chamorro becomes the first woman President of Nicaragua

1992 – Islamic forces took control of most of the Afghan capital Kabul following the collapse of the Communist government

1999 – The Red Hat Society starts with two chapters. Sue Ellen Cooper’s impulsive purchase of an old red fedora in a thrift shop, because she had read the poem “When I Am An Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple” by Jenny Joseph, makes her decide to give a dear friend a red hat for her birthday, and an international movement is born

2004 – The March for Women’s Lives brings over 800,000 pro-choice marchers to Washington D.C. to protest the so-called ‘Partial-Birth’ Abortion Ban Act of 2003, and other restrictions on abortion

2015 – After a week of protests in Baltimore because of the death of Freddie Gray from neck and spinal injuries during his arrest and transport by police, a march from city hall to the inner harbor turns violent, with cars and windows smashed, and police pelted with rocks. At least 34 people are arrested, 6 police officers are injured, and two photojournalists wearing their press credentials are roughed up by police, one being arrested, but later released

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