Today in History March 25

708 – Constantine begins his reign as Catholic Pope

1584 – Sir Walter Raleigh renews Humphrey Gilbert’s patent to explore North America

1609 – Henry Hudson embarks on an exploration for Dutch East India Co

1655 – Christiaan Huygens discovers Titan, Saturn’s largest satellite

1807 – First railway passenger service began in England

1811 – Percy Bysshe Shelley is expelled from the University of Oxford for his publication of the pamphlet The Necessity of Atheism.

1851 – Yosemite Valley discovered in California

1916 – Women are allowed to attend a boxing match

1937 – It is revealed Quaker Oats pays Babe Ruth $25,000 per year for ads

1937 – Wash Daily News is first US newspaper with perfumed advertising page

1944 – RAF Flight Sgt Nicholas Alkemade survives a jump from his Lancaster bomber from 18,000 feet over Germany without a parachute; his fall was broken by pine trees and soft snow, and he suffered only a sprained leg

Igor Stravinsky          photo by Arnold Newman

1946 – First performance of Igor Stravinsky’s “Ebony Concerto“

1954 – RCA manufactures first color TV set (12½” screen at $1,000)

1961 – Sputnik 10 carries a dog into Earth orbit; later recovered

1970 – Concorde makes its 1st supersonic flight (700 MPH/1,127 KPH)

1990 – Fire in illegal NYC social club, kills 87

1133 – Henry II, King of England (1154-89)

1867 – Gutzon Borglum, sculptor (Mt Rushmore)

1881 – Béla Bartok, Hungary, composer/pianist (Concerto for Orchestra)

1911 – Jack Ruby, killer of Lee Harvey Oswald (d. 1967)

1934 – Gloria Steinem, Toledo Ohio, US feminist/publisher (Ms Magazine)

1947 – Elton John, [Reginald Kenneth Dwight], England, singer

1918 – Claude Debussy, French composer (Iberia/La mer), dies in Paris at 55

1973 – Edward Steichen, pioneer of US photography, dies at 93