25 Aban 1403

Events

• 1705 (321 years ago) Rákóczi's War of Independence: The Habsburg Empire and Denmark win a military victory over the Kurucs from Hungary in the Battle of Zsibó.
• 1889 (137 years ago) Brazil is declared a republic by Marshal Deodoro da Fonseca as Emperor Pedro II is deposed in a military coup.
• 1917 (109 years ago) Eduskunta declares itself the supreme state power of Finland, prompting its declaration of independence and secession from Russia.
• 1933 (93 years ago) Thailand holds its first election.
• 1988 (38 years ago) The first Fairtrade label, Max Havelaar, is launched in the Netherlands.
• 1990 (36 years ago) The Communist People's Republic of Bulgaria is disestablished and a new republican government is instituted.
• 2001 (25 years ago) Microsoft launches the Xbox game console in North America.
• 2007 (19 years ago) Cyclone Sidr hits Bangladesh, killing an estimated 5,000 people and destroying parts of the world's largest mangrove forest, the Sundarbans.

Births

• 1397 (629 years ago) Nicholas V, pope of the Catholic Church (died 1455)
• 1738 (288 years ago) William Herschel, German-English astronomer and composer (died 1822)
• 1862 (164 years ago) Gerhart Hauptmann, German novelist, poet, and playwright, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1946)
• 1887 (139 years ago) Georgia O'Keeffe, American painter and educator (died 1986)
• 1891 (135 years ago) Erwin Rommel, German field marshal (died 1944)
• 1907 (119 years ago) Claus von Stauffenberg, German colonel (died 1944)
• 1929 (97 years ago) Ed Asner, American actor, singer, and producer (died 2021)
• 1935 (91 years ago) Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian politician

Deaths

• 1280 (746 years ago) Albertus Magnus, German bishop, theologian, and philosopher (born 1193)
• 1630 (396 years ago) Johannes Kepler, German astronomer and mathematician (born 1571)
• 1670 (356 years ago) John Amos Comenius, Czech bishop, philosopher, and educator (born 1592)
• 1908 (118 years ago) Cixi, China empress dowager and regent (born 1835)
• 1916 (110 years ago) Henryk Sienkiewicz, Polish journalist and author, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1846)
• 1917 (109 years ago) Émile Durkheim, French sociologist, psychologist, and philosopher (born 1858)
• 1959 (67 years ago) Charles Thomson Rees Wilson, Scottish physicist and meteorologist, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1869)
• 1978 (48 years ago) Margaret Mead, American anthropologist and author (born 1901)

All 381 events, births and deaths of November 15