This Day in History — May 25
This is the 145th day of 2022. There are 220 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT
2011: After a 25-year run The Oprah Winfrey Show airs its final broadcast, which had been taped the day before.
OTHER EVENTS
1846: Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte escapes to London from imprisonment in Ham, France. He returns two years later and is elected president of France.
1911: President Porfirio Diaz is overthrown in a revolution in Mexico.
1915: With the European powers preoccupied by war, China is forced to accept a Japanese ultimatum regarding rights and privileges.
1923: Independence of Transjordan — now Jordan — under Amir Abdullah is proclaimed.
1963: Leaders of six African nations, meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, form Organisation of African Unity. Africa Day (formerly African Freedom Day and African Liberation Day) is the annual commemoration of the foundation of the Organisation of African Unity (now known as the African Union). It is celebrated in various countries on the African continent as well as around the world.
1969: Parliamentary Government in Sudan is overthrown in bloodless coup and Major General Jafaar Numeiry heads new military regime.
1970: United States places first of its MIRV missiles, with multiple warheads capable of striking different targets, in underground silos in North Dakota.
1979: American Airlines DC-10 loses an engine and nosedives into ground at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, killing all 272 people aboard.
1985: Emir of Kuwait escapes death when terrorists detonate a bomb in his motorcade. Extremist Jihad Islamic organisation claims responsibility.
1986: An estimated seven million Americans participate in ‘Hands Across America’, forming a line across the country to raise money for the nation’s hungry and homeless.
1988: Israeli army imposes curfews confining 200,000 Arabs as Palestine Liberation Organization-mandated general strike shuts down commerce and transportation in occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.
1991: In a two-day airlift, Israel brings 15,000 Ethiopian Jews from the besieged city of Addis Ababa to Israel.
1992: Jay Leno makes his debut as permanent host of NBC’s Tonight Show, succeeding Johnny Carson.
1997: Rebels topple the Government of Sierra Leone in a violent coup. Polish voters adopt a constitution that removes the last traces of communism.
1998: Indonesia’s new president, B J Habibie, announces that elections will be held and begins releasing some political prisoners.
2000: The Chinese army begins removing British names from military buildings in Hong Kong.
2001: Human rights organisation Amnesty International marks 40 years of activism. The organisation has dealt with the cases of 47,000 prisoners of conscience to date.
2005: Suspected Basque rebels detonate a powerful car bomb during rush hour in Madrid, injuring 52 people in the sixth attack since Spain’s prime minister offered the group negotiations if it renounced violence.
2006: US President George W Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair hold a White House news conference in which they acknowledge making costly mistakes in Iraq, but vow to keep troops there until the fragile new Government takes hold.
2007: North Korea fires a salvo of test missiles into its coastal waters, flexing naval muscles as South Korea launches its most advanced destroyer ever, armed with a high-tech US air defence system.
2008: Michel Suleiman is sworn in as Lebanon’s president after parliament elects him in a long-delayed vote following an 18-month political stalemate that brought the country to the brink of another civil war.
2010: Relations on the divided Korean peninsula plunge to their lowest point in a decade when the North declares it is cutting all ties to Seoul as punishment for blaming the communists for the sinking of a South Korean warship.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS
Ralph Waldo Emerson, US writer (1803-1882); Josip Broz Tito, Yugoslavia’s president (1892-1980); Beverly Sills, US opera singer (1929-2007); Ian McKellen, English actor (1939- ); John Newcombe, Australian tennis star (1944-); Frank Oz, British-born director/voice of Yoda and Miss Piggy (1944- ); David Graham, Australian golfer (1946- ); Lincoln Barrington “Sugar” Minott, Jamaican reggae singer, producer, and sound-system operator (1956-2010); Mike Myers, Canadian actor/comedian (1963- ); Lauryn Hill, US singer (1975-).
– AP and Jamaica Observer