On This Day in History: July 25

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour a cup of your favorite morning beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

It was on this day in 1788 that Wolfgang Mozart completed his Symphony number 40 in g minor (K550). In the late 1780’s with his fortunes falling and in need of income moved from central Vienna to a suburb. While he had more space for his family his expenses still increased an he was borrowing money from friends. It was felt that he was suffering from deep depression but it was at this time that he wrote not only Symphony number 40 but also the last of the three Da Ponte operas, Così fan tutte.

 285 – Diocletian appoints Maximian as Caesar, co-ruler.

306 – Constantine I is proclaimed Roman emperor by his troops.

864 – The Edict of Pistres of Charles the Bald orders defensive measures against the Vikings.

1139 – Battle of Ourique: The independence of Portugal from the Kingdom of Leon declared after the Almoravids, led by Ali ibn Yusuf, are defeated by Prince Afonso Henriques. He then becomes Afonso I, King of Portugal, after calling the first assembly of the estates-general of Portugal at Lamego, where he is given the Crown from the Bishop of Bragança, to confirm the independence.

1261 – The city of Constantinople is recaptured by Nicaean forces under the command of Alexios Strategopoulos, re-establishing the Byzantine Empire.

1536 – Sebastian de Belalcazar on his search of El Dorado founds the city of Santiago de Cali.

1538 – The city of Guayaquil is founded by the Spanish Conquistador Francisco de Orellana and given the name Muy Noble y Muy Leal Ciudad de Santiago de Guayaquil.

1547 – Henry II of France is crowned.

1567 – Don Diego de Losada founds the city of Santiago de Leon de Caracas, modern-day Caracas, the capital city of Venezuela.

1593 – Henry IV of France publicly converts from Protestantism to Roman Catholicism.

1603 – James VI of Scotland is crowned bringing the Kingdoms of England and Scotland into personal union. Political union would occur in 1707.

1722 – The Three Years War begins along the Maine and Massachusetts border.

1755 – British governor Charles Lawrence and the Nova Scotia Council order the deportation of the Acadians. Thousands of Acadians are sent to the British Colonies in America, France and England. Some later move to Louisiana, while others resettle in New Brunswick.

1758 – Seven Years’ War: the island battery at Fortress Louisbourg in Nova Scotia is silenced and all French warships are destroyed or taken.

1759 – French and Indian War: in Western New York, British forces capture Fort Niagara from the French, who subsequently abandon Fort Rouille.

1788 – Wolfgang Mozart completes his Symphony number 40 in g minor (K550).

1792 – The Brunswick Manifesto is issued to the population of Paris promising vengeance if the French Royal Family is harmed.

1795 – The first stone of the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct is laid.

1797 – Horatio Nelson loses more than 300 men and his right arm during the failed conquest attempt of Tenerife (Spain).

1799 – At Aboukir in Egypt, Napoleon I of France defeats 10,000 Ottomans under Mustafa Pasha.

1814 – War of 1812: Battle of Lundy’s Lane – reinforcements arrive near Niagara Falls for General Riall’s British and Canadian forces and a bloody, all-night battle with Jacob Brown’s Americans commences at 18.00; the Americans retreat to Fort Erie.

1824 – Costa Rica annexes Guanacaste from Nicaragua.

1837 – The first commercial use of an electric telegraph is successfully demonstrated by William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone on 25 July 1837 between Euston and Camden Town in London.

1853 – Joaquin Murietta, the famous Californio bandit known as “Robin Hood of El Dorado”, is killed.

1861 – American Civil War: the Crittenden-Johnson Resolution is passed by the U.S. Congress stating that the war is being fought to preserve the Union and not to end slavery.

1866 – The U.S. Congress passes legislation authorizing the rank of General of the Army (commonly called “5-star general”). Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant becomes the first to be promoted to this rank.

1868 – Wyoming becomes a United States territory.

1869 – The Japanese daimyo begin returning their land holdings to the emperor as part of the Meiji Restoration reforms. (Traditional Japanese Date: June 17, 1869).

1894 – The First Sino-Japanese War begins when the Japanese fire upon a Chinese warship.

1898 – The United States invasion of Puerto Rico begins with U.S. troops led by General Nelson Miles landing at harbor of Guanica, Puerto Rico (The land invasion, proper, began that day: Sea-based bombardment and shelling of the capital city of San Juan had been occurring since May 1898).

1907 – Korea becomes a protectorate of Japan.

1908 – Ajinomoto is founded. Kikunae Ikeda of the Tokyo Imperial University discovers that a key ingredient in Konbu soup stock is monosodium glutamate (MSG), and patents a process for manufacturing it.

1909 – Louis Bleriot makes the first flight across the English Channel in a heavier-than-air machine from (Calais to Dover) in 37 minutes.

1915 – RFC Captain Lanoe Hawker becomes the first British military aviator to earn the Victoria Cross, for defeating three German two-seat observation aircraft in one day, over the Western Front.

1917 – Sir Thomas Whyte introduces the first income tax in Canada as a “temporary” measure (lowest bracket is 4% and highest is 25%).

1920 – Telecommunications: the first transatlantic two-way radio broadcast takes place.

1920 – France captures Damascus.

1925 – Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS) is established.

1934 – The Nazis assassinate Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss in a failed coup attempt.

1940 – General Guisan orders the Swiss Army to resist German invasion and makes surrender illegal.

1942 – Norwegian Manifesto calls for nonviolent resistance to the Nazis.

1943 – World War II: Benito Mussolini is forced out of office by his own Italian Grand Council and is replaced by Pietro Badoglio.

1944 – World War II: Operation Spring – one of the bloodiest days for the First Canadian Army during the war: 1,500 casualties, including 500 killed.

1946 – Operation Crossroads: an atomic bomb is detonated underwater in the lagoon of Bikini atoll.

1946 – At Club 500 in Atlantic City, New Jersey, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis stage their first show as a comedy team.

1948 – The Australian cricket team sets a world record for the highest successful run-chase in Test cricket history in the Fourth Test against England.

1952 – The U.S. non-incorporated colonial territory of Puerto Rico adopts a “constitution” of local-limited powers, approved by the United States Congress in contravention of then-current International Law.

1956 – 45 miles south of Nantucket Island, the Italian ocean liner SS Andrea Doria collides with the MS Stockholm in heavy fog and sinks the next day, killing 51.

1957 – Republic of Tunisia proclaimed.

1958 – The African Regroupment Party (PRA) holds its first congress in Cotonou.

1961 – In a speech John F. Kennedy emphasizes that any attack on Berlin is an attack on NATO.

1965 – Bob Dylan goes electric as he plugs in at the Newport Folk Festival, signaling a major change in folk and rock music.

1969 – Vietnam War: US President Richard Nixon declares the Nixon Doctrine, stating that the United States now expects its Asian allies to take care of their own military defense. This is the start of the “Vietnamization” of the war.

1973 – Soviet Mars 5 space probe launched.

1978 – Louise Brown, the world’s first “test tube baby” is born.

1979 – Another section of the Sinai peacefully returned by Israel to Egypt.

1984 – Salyut 7 Cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya becomes the first woman to perform a space walk.

1993 – Israel launches a massive attack against terrorist forces in Lebanon in what the Israelis call Operation Accountability, and the Lebanese call Seven-Day War.

1994 – Israel and Jordan sign the Washington Declaration, which formally ends the state of war that had existed between the nations since 1948.

1995 – A gas bottle explodes in Saint Michel station of line B of the RER (Paris regional train network). Eight are killed and 80 wounded.

2000 – Air France Flight 4590, a Concorde supersonic passenger jet, F-BTSC, crashes just after takeoff from Paris killing all 109 aboard and 4 on the ground.

2007 – Pratibha Patil is sworn in as India’s first woman president.