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First Winter Olympics

Born on This Day

Etta James

1938 - 2012

Singer who melded blues, gospel, soul and R&B on hits "At Last" and "I'd Rather Go Home."

Virginia Woolf

1882 - 1941

English writer who pioneered the use of stream-of-consciousness in works "Mrs. Dalloway" and "A Room of One's Own."

Alicia Keys

1981 -

Singer-songwriter who fuses R&B, soul and hip-hop styles in hits like "Fallin' and "No One," and who created the autobiographical musical "Hell's Kitchen."

Etta JamesGetty Images

Virginia WoolfGetty Images

Alicia KeysGetty Images For The Met Museum/

1920

JAN25

The Czech play "R.U.R." ("Rossum's Universal Robots") by Karel Čapek premieres. The hit helps introduce the word "robot" to the English language. At first happy to work for their makers, the robots rebel and take over society.

Timeline

Also on This Day in History

Discover more of the major events, famous births, notable deaths and everything else history-making that happened on January 25th

Scottish poet Robert Burns is born

Scottish poet Robert Burns is born on January 25, 1759. The day is still celebrated by Burns fans across the English-speaking world, with high-spirited “Robert Burns Night” feasts, featuring haggis and other Scottish delicacies, as well as enthusiastic drinking, toasting and speechmaking. Burns, the son of a poor farmer, received little formal schooling but read […]

First national memorial is ordered by Congress

On January 25, 1776, the Continental Congress authorizes the first national Revolutionary War memorial in honor of Brigadier General Richard Montgomery, who had been killed during an assault on Quebec on December 31, 1775. Montgomery, along with Benedict Arnold, led a two-pronged invasion of Canada in late 1775. Before joining Arnold at Quebec, Montgomery successfully […]

World’s largest diamond found

At the Premier Mine in Pretoria, South Africa, the 1.33 pound, 3,106-carat diamond "Cullinan" is discovered during a routine inspection by the mine’s superintendent. It was the largest diamond ever found.

Montenegro capitulates to Austro-Hungarian forces

After an eight-day offensive that marked the beginning of a new, aggressive strategy in the region, Austro-Hungarian troops under commander in chief Franz Conrad von Hotzendorf take control of the Balkan state of Montenegro, which surrendered on January 25. By the end of 1915, after initial setbacks, the Central Powers had completed their conquest of […]

Formal commission is established on the League of Nations

On January 25, 1919, in Paris, delegates to the peace conference formally approve the establishment of a commission on the League of Nations. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson insisted on chairing the commission—for him, the establishment of the League lay squarely at the center of the peace negotiations. He was supported by British Prime Minister David […]

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Thailand declares war on the United States and United Kingdom

On January 25, 1942, Thailand, a Japanese puppet state, declares war on the Allies. When war broke out in Europe in September 1939, Thailand declared its neutrality, much to the distress of France and the U.K. Both European nations had colonies surrounding Thailand and hoped Thailand would support the Allied effort and prevent Japanese encroachment […]

First Emmy Awards ceremony

The first Emmy Awards ceremony is held on January 25, 1949 at the Hollywood Athletic Club. The awards recognize excellence in television (which in the 1940s was a novel medium). Hollywood’s first television academy had been founded three years earlier by Sid Cassyd, a former film editor for Frank Capra who later worked as a […]

JFK becomes first president to hold live television news conference

On January 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy becomes the first U.S. president to hold a live televised news conference. From a podium in the State Department auditorium, Kennedy read a prepared statement regarding the famine in the Congo, the release of two American aviators from Russian custody and impending negotiations for an atomic test […]

Israeli sub vanishes

The Israeli submarine Dakar, carrying 69 sailors, disappears on January 25, 1968. It would remain missing for some 30 years. The Dakar was built at the height of World War II by H.M. Dockyard in Great Britain and commissioned as the HMS Totem by the British navy in 1943. Following the war, the submarine was […]

Charles Manson and his followers convicted of murder

In Los Angeles, California, cult leader Charles Manson is convicted, along with followers Susan Atkins, Leslie Van Houten, and Patricia Krenwinkle, of the brutal 1969 murders of actress Sharon Tate and six others. In 1967, Manson, a lifetime criminal, was released from a federal penitentiary in Washington State and traveled to San Francisco, where he […]

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Paul McCartney is released from a Tokyo jail and deported from Japan

Paul McCartney’s arrival at Tokyo’s Narita International Airport on January 16, 1980, marks his first visit to Japan since the Beatles tour of 1966. The occasion was a planned 11-city concert tour by his band Wings. Instead, Paul’s visit was limited to a nine-day stint in the Tokyo Narcotics Detention Center, which ended on January […]

Chairman Mao’s widow sentenced to death

Jiang Qing, the widow of Chinese leader Mao Zedong, is sentenced to death for her “counter-revolutionary crimes” during the Cultural Revolution. Originally an actress in Communist theater and film, her marriage to Mao in 1939 was widely criticized, as his third wife, Ho Zizhen, was a celebrated veteran of the Long March who Mao had […]

Russia activates its nuclear command systems for the first time

On January 25, 1995, Russia’s early-warning defense radar detects an unexpected missile launch near Norway, and Russian military command estimates the missile to be just minutes from impact on Moscow. Moments later, Russian President Boris Yeltsin, his defense minister and his chief of staff are informed and the nuclear command systems switched to combat mode. […]

BTK killer sends message

On January 25, 2005, a Wichita, Kansas, television station receives a postcard from the BTK killer that leads police to discover a Post Toasties cereal box that had been altered to contain the letters BTK. This communication was one in a long line sent by the serial killer who terrorized Wichita for over 30 years, […]

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