1925

Events in 1925 69

• 1789 – 1925 Qajar dynasty Decline, territorial losses and foreign pressure The Qajar dynasty ruled Iran for over a century but presided over territorial losses to Russia and Britain and growing foreign interference. The 1906 Constitutional Revolution forced the creation of a parliament (Majlis), a landmark in Iran's political modernisation, before the dynasty fell to Reza Khan's coup.
• 1844 – 1925 Queen Alexandra (1844-1925) Died 20 November 1925, aged 80 Alexandra of Denmark, queen consort of the United Kingdom as the wife of King Edward VII, died at Sandringham House. She had been a prominent public figure for over six decades, known for her charitable work and fashion influence. She was the mother of King George V.
• 1855 – 1925 Robert M. La Follette Sr. (1855-1925) Died 18 June 1925, aged 69 Robert M. La Follette Sr., progressive U.S. senator from Wisconsin and 1924 Progressive Party presidential candidate, died in Washington, D.C. He had built a national reputation as a champion of anti-trust regulation and political reform. His sons continued his progressive political legacy in Wisconsin politics.
• 1860 – 1925 William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925) Died 26 July 1925, aged 65 William Jennings Bryan, three-time Democratic presidential candidate and former U.S. Secretary of State, died in Dayton, Tennessee, five days after serving as prosecutor in the Scopes trial over the teaching of evolution. He had been a leading voice of American populism and religious fundamentalism. His death came suddenly, reportedly from a combination of exhaustion and diabetes.
• 1866 – 1925 Erik Satie (1866-1925) Died 1 July 1925, aged 59 French composer Erik Satie, known for eccentric piano works such as the Gymnopedies and his influence on Impressionist and later minimalist music, died in Paris of cirrhosis of the liver. He was a major influence on composers including Debussy, Ravel and the group known as Les Six. His unconventional style prefigured many later avant-garde movements.
• 1866 – 1925 Sun Yat-sen (1866-1925) Died 12 March 1925, aged 58 Sun Yat-sen, first provisional president of the Republic of China and founder of the Kuomintang, died of cancer in Beijing. He is honored in both mainland China and Taiwan as the father of modern China. His death intensified the power struggle within the Kuomintang that Chiang Kai-shek would eventually win.
• 1924 – 1925 Heisenberg goes to Copenhagen on a Rockefeller fellowship Seven months with Bohr, to 1 May 1925 The institute where the interpretation of quantum mechanics would be argued out.
• 1925 – 2022 Angela Lansbury (1925-2022) Died 11 October 2022, aged 96 British-American actress of a seventy-five-year career, from Gaslight to Murder, She Wrote, with five Tony Awards along the way.
• 1925 – 1971 Audie Murphy (1925-1971) Died 28 May 1971, aged 45 Audie Murphy was the most decorated American combat soldier of World War II, earning every military combat award for valor available from the US Army. He later became a Hollywood actor, starring in numerous westerns and playing himself in the film adaptation of his memoir To Hell and Back. He died in a small plane crash in Virginia.
• 1925 – 1964 Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964) Died 3 August 1964, aged 39 O'Connor was an American writer known for Southern Gothic novels and short stories exploring morality and religion, including "A Good Man Is Hard to Find". She wrote much of her work while suffering from lupus, which caused her early death.
• 1925 – 1961 Frantz Fanon (1925-1961) Died 6 December 1961, aged 36 Martinique-born psychiatrist and philosopher whose writings, including The Wretched of the Earth, became foundational texts of anti-colonial and postcolonial thought. He was an active supporter of the Algerian independence movement and died of leukemia shortly before his best-known book was published.
• 1925 – 1966 Lenny Bruce (1925-1966) Died 3 August 1966, aged 40 Lenny Bruce was an American stand-up comedian whose confrontational, taboo-breaking material led to repeated obscenity prosecutions. He was found dead of a morphine overdose in his Los Angeles home on 3 August 1966.
• 1925 – 1965 Malcolm X (1925-1965) Died 21 February 1965, aged 39 Malcolm X was an American Muslim minister and human rights activist who became a prominent voice of Black empowerment during the civil rights era. He was assassinated while giving a speech in New York City on 21 February 1965. His autobiography, published later that year, became a landmark work of American literature.
• 1925 – 1963 Medgar Evers (1925-1963) Died 12 June 1963, aged 37 Medgar Evers was a civil rights activist and NAACP field secretary who organized voter registration drives and boycotts in Mississippi. He was shot and killed outside his home in Jackson by a white supremacist. His murder galvanized the civil rights movement, and his killer was not convicted until 1994.
• 1925 – 1979 Pahlavi dynasty The last shahs; rapid modernisation The Pahlavi dynasty, founded by Reza Shah after a 1921 coup, was Iran's last monarchy. Reza Shah and his son Mohammad Reza drove rapid, top-down modernisation and Westernisation, and in 1935 the country's international name was formally changed from Persia to Iran. Autocratic rule and inequality fuelled the discontent that led to revolution.
• 1925 – 1961 Patrice Lumumba (1925-1961) Died 17 January 1961, aged 35 First democratically elected Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, ousted in a coup months after independence. He was captured, tortured, and executed by firing squad in Katanga with the involvement of Belgian and Congolese rival factions.
• 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial Scopes Monkey Trial John Scopes was tried in Dayton, Tennessee in July 1925 for teaching evolution in violation of the state's Butler Act, in a case deliberately staged to test the law. Clarence Darrow defended him against William Jennings Bryan, and Darrow's questioning of Bryan on the literal truth of Genesis became the trial's famous moment. Scopes was convicted and fined $100; the verdict was later overturned on a technicality.
• 1925 – 1970 Yukio Mishima (1925-1970) Died 25 November 1970, aged 45 Yukio Mishima, the acclaimed Japanese novelist and playwright, died by ritual suicide after leading a failed attempt to incite a coup at a Tokyo military base. His death shocked Japan and drew international attention to his ultranationalist politics.
• 1925 Nellie Tayloe Ross becomes first female US state governor Wyoming inaugurates the first woman governor in the United States Nellie Tayloe Ross was sworn in as governor of Wyoming, becoming the first woman to serve as a state governor in the United States. She completed the term of her late husband, William B. Ross, who had died in office. Miriam Ferguson of Texas took office as governor just weeks later that same year.
• 1925 – 1995 Gilles Deleuze (1925-1995) Died 4 November 1995, aged 70 Gilles Deleuze was a French philosopher whose work, including collaborations with Felix Guattari such as Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus, became highly influential in continental philosophy and critical theory. He wrote extensively on subjects ranging from cinema to Spinoza. He took his own life after years of severe respiratory illness.
• 1925 – 1964 Yukio Mishima Japanese novelist Mishima explored beauty, death, and tradition in modern Japan through highly stylized literary works.
• 1925 – 2008 Paul Newman (1925-2008) Died 26 September 2008, aged 83 American actor and philanthropist celebrated for films including The Hustler, Cool Hand Luke and The Sting, winning the Academy Award for Best Actor for The Color of Money. He also founded the Newman's Own food brand, donating all profits to charity.
• 1925 – 2014 Elaine Stritch (1925-2014) Died 17 July 2014, aged 89 Elaine Stritch, the brash Broadway actress and singer known for her performance of "The Ladies Who Lunch" in Stephen Sondheim's "Company," died in Michigan. She won a Tony and multiple Emmy Awards over a career spanning seven decades. Her one-woman shows became celebrated late-career highlights.
• 1925 Australopithecus africanus described Raymond Dart announces the Taung Child fossil Anatomist Raymond Dart published a description in Nature of a fossil skull found near Taung, South Africa, naming it Australopithecus africanus. The find was one of the first to suggest that early human ancestors evolved in Africa, a claim initially met with skepticism. It later became central evidence for the African origin of humanity.
• 1925 – 2001 Jack Lemmon (1925-2001) Died 27 June 2001, aged 76 Lemmon was an actor equally at home in comedy and drama, winning Oscars for Mister Roberts and Save the Tiger. He starred in Some Like It Hot, The Apartment and The Odd Couple, often for the director Billy Wilder and in a long partnership with Walter Matthau. He was known for playing harried everymen.
• 1925 – 2006 Robert Altman (1925-2006) Died 20 November 2006, aged 81 Robert Altman, the acclaimed American film director known for "M*A*S*H," "Nashville" and "The Player," died of complications from leukemia. He had received an honorary Academy Award earlier that year in recognition of his career. His overlapping-dialogue ensemble style influenced generations of filmmakers.
• 1925 Nazi Party re-founded Hitler relaunches the NSDAP after release from prison Adolf Hitler re-established the National Socialist German Workers' Party at a meeting in Munich's Burgerbraukeller, less than a year after his release from prison for the Beer Hall Putsch. The reorganized party adopted a strategy of gaining power through legal political means rather than armed insurrection. The SS was also formed this year as Hitler's personal guard.
• 1925 – 2016 Pierre Boulez (1925-2016) Died 5 January 2016, aged 90 Boulez was a French composer and conductor who was a leading figure in postwar avant-garde classical music. He led major orchestras including the New York Philharmonic and Chicago Symphony. His compositions and writings shaped serialist and modernist music for decades.
• 1925 The Great Gatsby published F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel of the Jazz Age appears F. Scott Fitzgerald published The Great Gatsby, a novel of wealth, love and disillusionment set on Long Island during the Jazz Age. It sold poorly during his lifetime but was later recognized as a landmark of American literature. It is now widely taught in schools and considered one of the great American novels.
• 1925 – 2002 Rod Steiger (1925-2002) Died 9 July 2002, aged 77 Rod Steiger was an American actor of the intense, Method school whose roles included the mob-connected brother in On the Waterfront, the title character in The Pawnbroker and the bigoted Southern sheriff in In the Heat of the Night, for which he won the 1968 Academy Award for Best Actor. He also played Napoleon and Mussolini. He spoke publicly about his struggles with depression.
• 1925 Hindenburg elected President of Germany World War I field marshal wins the German presidency Paul von Hindenburg, the former imperial army chief of staff, won Germany's second presidential election of the Weimar Republic. He succeeded Friedrich Ebert and would serve until his death in 1934, later appointing Adolf Hitler as chancellor in 1933. His election marked a shift toward conservative, nationalist leadership in Weimar Germany.
• 1925 – 2015 Yogi Berra (1925-2015) Died 22 September 2015, aged 90 Yogi Berra was an American baseball catcher who won ten World Series championships with the New York Yankees, more than any other player in history. He later managed both the Yankees and the New York Mets to league pennants. Berra was equally famous for his contradictory, widely quoted turns of phrase known as 'Yogi-isms'.
• 1925 – 1998 Pol Pot (1925-1998) Died 15 April 1998, aged 72 Pol Pot, leader of the Khmer Rouge regime that killed an estimated 1.5 to 2 million Cambodians between 1975 and 1979, died on 15 April 1998 while under house arrest in the Cambodian jungle, days before he was expected to face international trial. His death closed the door on any formal reckoning for the era's chief architect.
• 1925 Amundsen-Ellsworth polar flight expedition Two flying boats attempt to reach the North Pole by air Roald Amundsen and Lincoln Ellsworth led an expedition with two Dornier flying boats from Svalbard toward the North Pole, aiming to be first to reach it by air. One aircraft was damaged landing on the ice, and the crews spent weeks repairing the other before flying back to safety. The expedition fell short of the pole but demonstrated the feasibility of polar aviation ahead of Amundsen's airship flight the following year.
• 1925 – 2003 Jeanne Crain (1925-2003) American actress, 20th Century Fox's girl next door, Oscar-nominated for Pinky.
• 1925 May Thirtieth Movement begins in Shanghai Anti-imperialist protests erupt after police shoot demonstrators British-led police in Shanghai's International Settlement opened fire on Chinese protesters demonstrating against foreign privilege, killing several and triggering nationwide strikes and boycotts. The May Thirtieth Movement galvanized Chinese nationalism and boosted support for both the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party. It marked a turning point in China's anti-imperialist struggle.
• 1925 French Open 1925 — first international Grand Slam Men: René Lacoste · Women: Suzanne Lenglen First French Open open to international players and recognised as a Grand Slam event. René Lacoste and Suzanne Lenglen won. Lenglen was virtually unbeatable on clay.
• 1925 – 2010 Tony Curtis (1925-2010) Died 29 September 2010, aged 85 Curtis was an American film actor who starred in more than 100 films, including Some Like It Hot and Spartacus, becoming one of Hollywood's leading men of the 1950s and 1960s. He was nominated for an Academy Award for The Defiant Ones. He died of cardiac arrest at his home in Nevada.
• 1925 Chrysler Corporation founded Walter Chrysler launches his automobile company Walter P. Chrysler founded the Chrysler Corporation in Detroit, reorganizing the failing Maxwell Motor Company into a new automaker. Chrysler grew into one of the leading American car manufacturers alongside Ford and General Motors. The company introduced innovations such as hydraulic brakes in its early models.
• 1925 – 2018 Barbara Bush (1925-2018) Died 17 April 2018, aged 92 American First Lady during the presidency of her husband George H. W. Bush and mother of President George W. Bush. She was a prominent advocate for literacy and family reading programs. She remains one of only two women to be both wife and mother of a US president.
• 1925 – 2011 Farley Granger (1925-2011) American actor known for two Hitchcock films, Rope and Strangers on a Train.
• 1925 – 1981 Bill Haley (1925-1981) Died 9 February 1981, aged 55 American musician Bill Haley, whose recording of "Rock Around the Clock" is widely regarded as one of the songs that brought rock and roll to mainstream popularity, died in Harlingen, Texas, on 9 February 1981. His band Bill Haley & His Comets had been among the first stars of the genre in the mid-1950s.
• 1925 – 2019 D.A. Pennebaker (1925-2019) Died 1 August 2019, aged 94 D.A. Pennebaker was an American documentary filmmaker and pioneer of the direct cinema movement, known for Dont Look Back, his film on Bob Dylan, and Monterey Pop. He received an honorary Academy Award in 2013 for his lifetime contribution to documentary filmmaking. He died at his home in New York.
• 1925 Mein Kampf published Hitler's manifesto appears in print Adolf Hitler published the first volume of Mein Kampf, setting out his political ideology and antisemitic worldview, much of it dictated during his imprisonment. The book sold modestly at first but became required reading in Nazi Germany after 1933. It remains one of the most notorious texts of the 20th century.
• 1925 Ku Klux Klan marches on Washington Tens of thousands parade down Pennsylvania Avenue An estimated 30,000 to 50,000 members of the Ku Klux Klan marched in white robes down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., in a show of the organization's strength during its 1920s resurgence. It was one of the largest Klan demonstrations in American history. Internal scandals and public backlash caused the group's membership to decline sharply in the following years.
• 1925 – 2003 Donald O'Connor (1925-2003) Died 27 September 2003, aged 78 Donald O'Connor was a dancer, singer and actor who began in vaudeville as a child. He is best remembered for his acrobatic solo number in the film 'Singin' in the Rain' and for a series of comedies co-starring a talking mule named Francis.
• 1925 – 1985 Laura Ashley (1925-1985) Died 17 September 1985, aged 60 Ashley was a Welsh fashion and textile designer who built a global brand known for floral, romantic prints. She died in Wales on 17 September 1985 from injuries sustained in a fall.
• 1925 – 1980 Peter Sellers (1925-1980) Died 24 July 1980, aged 54 British comedian and actor best known for playing Inspector Clouseau in the Pink Panther film series and for his roles in Dr. Strangelove. His versatile character work made him one of the most acclaimed comic actors of his generation. He died of a heart attack in London.
• 1925 Spanish-French forces land at Alhucemas Amphibious assault turns the tide of the Rif War Spanish and French forces carried out a large joint amphibious landing at Alhucemas Bay on the coast of Morocco, considered one of the first modern amphibious landings using purpose-built landing craft. The operation broke the resistance of Abd el-Krim's Republic of the Rif. Abd el-Krim surrendered to French forces the following year, ending the Rif War.
• 1925 – 2015 B.B. King American blues guitarist & singer B.B. King (1925-2015) — born Riley B. King in the Mississippi Delta — became "the King of the Blues", famous for his guitar Lucille, his hit "The Thrill Is Gone", and a touring and recording career spanning more than sixty years and fifteen Grammy Awards.
• 1925 – 1982 Marty Robbins (1925-1982) Died 8 December 1982, aged 57 American country music singer known for the ballad "El Paso." He died in Nashville following complications from heart surgery.
• 1925 First television demonstration of a recognizable image John Logie Baird transmits a moving face Scottish inventor John Logie Baird successfully transmitted a recognizable moving image, the face of a ventriloquist's dummy, using his mechanical television system in London. It was the first demonstration of true televised images rather than simple silhouettes. Baird gave a public demonstration to scientists and press early the following year.
• 1925 – 2012 Gore Vidal (1925-2012) Died 31 July 2012, aged 86 American writer and public intellectual known for historical novels and sharp political essays. He died of complications from pneumonia at his Hollywood Hills home.
• 1925 – 2013 Elmore Leonard (1925-2013) Died 20 August 2013, aged 87 Elmore Leonard was an American author of crime novels including Get Shorty and Out of Sight, many of which were adapted into films. He died at his home in Michigan after suffering a stroke.
• 1925 – 2013 Margaret Thatcher The Iron Lady The first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
• 1925 – 2022 Angela Lansbury (1925-2022) British-American actress whose career spanned eight decades, from Gaslight to Broadway's Mame and television's Murder, She Wrote.
• 1925 Locarno Treaties negotiated European powers agree to guarantee post-war borders Germany, France, Belgium, Britain and Italy negotiated a set of agreements at Locarno, Switzerland, guaranteeing the western European borders set by the Treaty of Versailles. The treaties were formally signed in London on 1 December 1925 and ushered in a brief period of European reconciliation. Germany's acceptance paved the way for its entry into the League of Nations the following year.
• 1925 – 2003 Celia Cruz (1925-2003) Died 16 July 2003, aged 77 Celia Cruz was a Cuban singer known as the Queen of Salsa, with a powerful voice and a career of more than 50 years spanning the Sonora Matancera, the Fania All-Stars and a long solo run. She left Cuba after the 1959 revolution and never returned, becoming a symbol of the exile community.
• 1925 – 2005 Johnny Carson (1925-2005) Died 23 January 2005, aged 79 Johnny Carson, the longtime host of "The Tonight Show" who defined American late-night television for three decades, died on 23 January 2005. He retired from the show in 1992 after transforming it into a cultural institution and launching countless comedy careers. Carson rarely appeared publicly after his retirement.
• 1925 – 1984 Richard Burton (1925-1984) Died 5 August 1984, aged 58 Welsh actor Richard Burton, a seven-time Academy Award nominee known for films including Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and his turbulent marriage to Elizabeth Taylor, died of a cerebral hemorrhage in Switzerland.
• 1925 First Surrealist group exhibition opens in Paris La Peinture Surrealiste showcases the new art movement The Galerie Pierre in Paris hosted the first group exhibition of Surrealist painting, featuring works by Joan Miro, Max Ernst, Pablo Picasso, Man Ray and others. It followed the publication of Andre Breton's Surrealist Manifesto the previous year. The show helped establish Surrealism as a major force in twentieth-century art.
• 1925 – 2026 Roy Medvedev (1925-2026) Died 13 February 2026, aged 100 Russian historian and Soviet-era dissident, among his country's foremost historiographers of the late twentieth century.
• 1925 – 1985 Rock Hudson (1925-1985) Died 25 July 1985, aged 59 Hudson was a leading Hollywood actor known for films including Giant and Pillow Talk. His death from AIDS-related illness in Los Angeles on 25 July 1985 made him the first major celebrity to publicly reveal an AIDS diagnosis, transforming public awareness of the disease. His death is widely credited with increasing funding for AIDS research.
• 1925 – 1990 José Napoleón Duarte (1925-1990) Died 23 February 1990, aged 64 José Napoleón Duarte was president of El Salvador from 1984 to 1989, governing during the height of the country's civil war. He sought a negotiated end to the conflict while maintaining close ties with the United States. He died of cancer in San Salvador.
• 1925 – 2008 William F. Buckley Jr. (1925-2008) Died 27 February 2008, aged 82 American conservative writer and commentator who founded National Review magazine and hosted the television program Firing Line. He was a central figure in shaping the modern American conservative movement.
• 1925 Grand Ole Opry radio program begins Nashville barn dance broadcast launches a country music institution Nashville radio station WSM launched the Barn Dance program that would later be renamed the Grand Ole Opry, showcasing country and folk musicians. It grew into the longest-running radio broadcast in United States history and a cornerstone of the country music industry. The Opry remains based in Nashville, Tennessee, to this day.
• 1925 – 1980 Anastasio Somoza Debayle (1925-1980) Died 17 September 1980, aged 54 Former President of Nicaragua and the last member of the Somoza family dynasty to rule the country, overthrown by the Sandinista revolution in 1979. He was assassinated in exile in Asuncion, Paraguay, by Argentine and Sandinista-linked guerrillas. His death closed the chapter on more than four decades of Somoza family rule.
• 1925 – 1990 Sammy Davis Jr. (1925-1990) Died 16 May 1990, aged 64 Sammy Davis Jr. was an American entertainer known as a singer, dancer, and actor, and as a member of the Rat Pack alongside Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. He broke racial barriers in American entertainment across a decades-long career. He died of throat cancer in Beverly Hills on 16 May 1990.
• 1925 Battleship Potemkin premieres Eisenstein's silent film debuts in Leningrad Sergei Eisenstein's silent film Battleship Potemkin, dramatizing the 1905 mutiny aboard a Russian battleship, premiered in Leningrad. Its innovative use of montage editing, especially in the Odessa Steps sequence, influenced generations of filmmakers worldwide. It is widely regarded as one of the most important films in cinema history.