25 Mordad 1405

Events

• 942 (1084 years ago) Start of the four-day Battle of al-Mada'in, between the Hamdanids of Mosul and the Baridis of Basra over control of the Abbasid capital, Baghdad.
• 1844 (182 years ago) Governor-general of the Philippines Narciso Claveria signs a decree to reform the country's calendar by skipping Tuesday, December 31, as a solution to anomalies that had existed since Ferdinand Magellan's arrival in 1521.
• 1869 (157 years ago) Battle of Acosta Ñu: A Paraguayan battalion largely made up of children is massacred by the Brazilian Army during the Paraguayan War.
• 1914 (112 years ago) German admiral Wilhelm Souchon hands over the two warships under his command to the Ottomans and becomes commander of the Turkish navy, leading later to the entry of the Ottoman Empire in World War I.
• 1920 (106 years ago) Polish–Soviet War: The Battle of Radzymin concludes; the Soviet Red Army is forced to turn away from Warsaw.
• 1942 (84 years ago) World War II: US Navy L-class blimp L-8 drifts in from the Pacific and eventually crashes in Daly City, California. The two-man crew cannot be found.
• 1960 (66 years ago) Cyprus gains its independence from the United Kingdom.
• 1987 (39 years ago) Northwest Airlines Flight 255, a McDonnell Douglas MD-82, crashes after takeoff in Detroit, Michigan, killing 154 of the 155 on board, plus two people on the ground.

Births

• 1816 (210 years ago) Octavia Taylor, daughter of Zachary Taylor (died 1820)
• 1832 (194 years ago) Wilhelm Wundt, German physician, psychologist, and physiologist (died 1920)
• 1845 (181 years ago) Gabriel Lippmann, Luxembourger-French physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1921)
• 1888 (138 years ago) T. E. Lawrence, British colonel, diplomat, writer and archaeologist (died 1935)
• 1913 (113 years ago) Menachem Begin, Belarusian-Israeli politician, Prime Minister of Israel, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1992)
• 1920 (106 years ago) Charles Bukowski, German-American poet, novelist, and short story writer (died 1994)
• 1954 (72 years ago) James Cameron, Canadian director, producer, and screenwriter
• 1958 (68 years ago) Madonna, American singer-songwriter, producer, actress, and director

Deaths

• 1705 (321 years ago) Jacob Bernoulli, Swiss mathematician and theorist (born 1654)
• 1886 (140 years ago) Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Indian mystic and philosopher (born 1836)
• 1899 (127 years ago) Robert Bunsen, German chemist and academic (born 1811)
• 1949 (77 years ago) Margaret Mitchell, American journalist and author (born 1900)
• 1977 (49 years ago) Elvis Presley, American singer and actor (born 1935)
• 2003 (23 years ago) Idi Amin, Ugandan field marshal and politician, 3rd President of Uganda (born 1928)
• 2018 (8 years ago) Aretha Franklin, American singer-songwriter (born 1942)
• 2018 (8 years ago) Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Indian poet and 12th Prime Minister of India (born 1924)

All 397 events, births and deaths of August 16