First Confidential

THIS DAY IN HISTORY - JULY 25th

Albert Einstein, Quote

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.”

~ Albert Einstein

Wikiquote (Albert Einstein (March 14, 1879 – April 18, 1955) was a theoretical physicist and humanist who is widely regarded as one of the most influential scientists of all time.)

This Day in History

July 25th, 306

Constantine I is proclaimed Roman emperor by his troops

Constantine I is proclaimed Roman emperor by his troops.

Wikipedia  Image: Fresco from Monastery of St. Jovan, above the village Gornji Matejevac near Nis. depicting St. Constantine the Great and his wife, holding the cross; Bronze statue of Constantine I in York, England, near the spot where he was proclaimed Augustus in 306; Constantine the Great, mosaic in Hagia Sophia, 1000.

July 25th, 1758

Seven Years' War: was a world war that took place between 1756 and 1763. It involved most of the great powers of the time and affected Europe, North America, Central America, the West African coast, India, and the Philippines. Seven Year's War: Battle of Lagos; Naval battle between Britain and France

Seven Years' War:
1758 - The island battery at Fortress Louisbourg in Nova Scotia is silenced and all French warships are destroyed or taken.

Wikipedia  Painting: The Death of General Wolfe (1771) by Benjamin West, depicting the Battle of the Plains of Abraham; Battle of Hochkirch; Battle of Minorca of May 20, 1756, shortly after the French landing on Minorca; Siege of Kolberg (1761); Leibgarde battalion at Kolin, 1757; Battle of Zorndorf in August 1758 where Russian and Prussian armies suffered heavy casualties and both claimed a victory. Battle of Lagos, by Théodore Gudin.

July 25th, 1759

French and Indian War Collage: (1754–1763) is the name for the North American theater of the Seven Years' War

French and Indian War: in Western New York British forces capture Fort Niagara from the French, who subsequently abandon Fort Rouillé or Fort Toronto.

Wikipedia  Painting: Major Washington and a wounded General Braddock at the Battle of Monongahela. Lemercier, 1854; Portrait of Washington was painted in 1772 by Charles Willson Peale, and shows Washington in uniform as a colonel of the Virginia Regiment. The original hangs in Lee Chapel at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia. It is the earliest known depiction of Washington; British troops under Edward Braddock near Fort Duquesne, Pa., during the French and Indian War. Credit: MPI / Hulton Archive / Getty Images; Indian from Death of General Wolfe painting By Benjamin West in 1770; Death of General James Wolfe by stray cannon shot at Battle of Quebec in 1759 Painted by Benjamin West in 1770.

July 25th, 1795

The first stone of the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct is laid

Pontcysyllte Aqueduct: The first stone of the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct is laid in Wales.

Wikipedia  Photo: The Pontcysyllte Aqueduct on the Llangollen Canal

July 25th, 1799

Napoleonic Wars: (1803–15) were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions Battle of Abukir: at Aboukir in Egypt, Napoleon I of France defeats 10,000 Ottomans under Mustafa Pasha

French Revolutionary Wars / Napoleonic Wars:
1799 - Battle of Abukir (1799); At Abu Qir in Egypt, Napoleon I of France defeats 10,000 Ottomans under Mustafa Pasha.

Wikipedia  Painting: Battle of Trafalgar: The British HMS Sandwich fires to the French flagship Bucentaure (completely dismasted) in the battle of Trafalgar; Napoleon in Berlin (Meynier). After defeating Prussian forces at Jena, the French Army entered Berlin on 27 October 1806; Battle of the Bridge of Arcole Napoleon Bonaparte leading his troops over the bridge of Arcole, by Horace Vernet; Napoleon as King of Italy (Appiani); Napoleon Crossing the Alps (David). In 1800 Bonaparte took the French Army across the Alps, eventually defeating the Austrians at Marengo; Charge of the Russian Imperial Guard cavalry against French cuirassiers at the Battle of Friedland, 14 June 1807; Battle of Borodino as depicted by Louis Lejeune. The battle was the largest and bloodiest single-day action of the Napoleonic Wars; Napoleon's withdrawal from Russia, a painting by Adolph Northen; Wellington at Waterloo by Robert Alexander Hillingford; Napoleon is often represented in his green colonel uniform of the Chasseur à Cheval, with a large bicorne and a hand-in-waistcoat gesture.
Battle of Abukir; French and Ottoman armies at the battle, 1799.

July 25th, 1814

War of 1812 collage

War of 1812, Battle of Lundy's Lane: near Niagara Falls, General Riall's British and Canadian forces battle all-night with Jacob Brown's Americans; the Americans retreat to Fort Erie.

Wikipedia  Painting: Damage to the US Capitol after the Burning of Washington; HMS Shannon leading the captured American frigate USS Chesapeake into Halifax, Nova Scotia (1813); USS Constitution vs HMS Guerriere; the death of Tecumseh at Moraviantown; Oliver Hazard Perry's message to William Henry Harrison after the Battle of Lake Erie began with what would become one of the most famous sentences in American military history: "We have met the enemy and they are ours; "Andrew Jackson leads the defence of New Orleans; The mortally wounded Isaac Brock spurs troops on at the Queenston Heights.

July 25th, 1861

Lincoln Memorial: an American national monument built to honor the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln - located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. across from the Washington Monument American Civil War: Battle of Antietam; Stone Bridge at Antietam Battlefield - Sharpsburg, Maryland American Civil War, Battle of Mobile Bay: at Mobile Bay near Mobile, Alabama, Admiral David Farragut leads a Union flotilla through Confederate defenses and seals one of the last major Southern ports

American Civil War:
1861 - The United States Congress passes the Crittenden-Johnson Resolution, stating that the war is being fought to preserve the Union and not to end slavery.

Wikipedia - CivilWar.org  Image: ● Lincoln Memorial; an American national monument built to honor the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln - located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. across from the Washington Monument.
● The northern army led by George McClellan and the southern army led by Robert E. Lee met at Antietam Creek, Maryland in September, 1862. It was a bloody battle where 13,000 Confederates and 12,000 Union troops died in just one day. McClellan had hesitated to attack before the battle thus letting the southern troops regroup. Also, he had saved reserves and refused to use them at the end of the battle thinking that Lee was holding reserves for a counterattack, even though those reserves didn't exist. The Union victory stopped Lee's northward advance and was a turning point in the war.
● Battle of Antietam / Stone Bridge at Antietam Battlefield - Sharpsburg, Maryland
● Battle of Mobile Bay (1890) by Xanthus Russell Smith.
● Although photography was still in its infancy, war correspondents produced thousands of images, bringing the harsh realities of the frontlines to those on the home front in a new and visceral way. The Atlantic.

July 25th, 1868

Grand Teton National Park: a United States National Park in northwestern Wyoming (The park includes the major peaks of the 40-mile (64 km) long Teton Range as well as most of the northern sections of the valley known as Jackson Hole)

Wyoming becomes a United States territory.

Wikipedia  Photo: Grand Teton National Park; a United States National Park in northwestern Wyoming. (The park includes the major peaks of the 40-mile (64 km) long Teton Range as well as most of the northern sections of the valley known as Jackson Hole) ● Panoramic view from Jackson Hole Valley ● Viewed from Jackson Hole valley looking west, the high peaks of the Teton Range rise more than 7,000 feet (2,135 m) above the valley floor ● The "Sleeping Indian" is a series of rock formations on Sheep Mountain in the Gros Ventre Range on the east side of Jackson Hole ● Oxbow Bend on the Snake River

July 25th, 1894

First Sino-Japanese War Collage: (August 1, 1894 – April, 17 1895) was fought between Qing Dynasty China and Meiji Japan, primarily over control of Korea

First Sino-Japanese War:
1894 - War begins when the Japanese fire upon a Chinese warship.

Wikipedia  Image: Map: South China Sea, credit Middlebury.edu; Japanese troops during the Sino-Japanese war, credit Cultural-China History.

July 25th, 1920

Italian scientist pictured with his telegraph equipment, credit Ann Ronan Picture Library - Heritage-Images

Telecommunications: the first transatlantic two-way radio broadcast takes place.

Wikipedia  Image: Guglielmo Marconi pictured with his telegraph equipment, credit Ann Ronan Picture Library - Heritage-Images.

July 25th, 1940

World War II: Second firestorm raid on Germany, the Royal Air Force conducts an air raid on the town of Kassel, killing 10,000 and rendering 150,000 homeless World War II: Battle of Leyte Gulf; Battle of Leyte Gulf; The first kamikaze attack: A Japanese plane carrying a 200-kilogram (440 lb) bomb attacks HMAS Australia off Leyte Island World War II: German V1 flying-bomb and V2 Rockets - Preparations for a Salvo Launch of V-2 Rockets in the Heidelager near Blizna (Poland) (1944) World War II: Eastern Front (World War II); was a theatre of World War II between the European Axis powers and co-belligerent Finland against the Soviet Union, Poland, and some other Allies which encompassed Northern, Southern and Eastern Europe from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945

World War II:
1940 - General Guisan orders the Swiss Army to resist German invasion and makes surrender illegal.
1943 - Benito Mussolini is forced out of office by his own Italian Grand Council and is replaced by Pietro Badoglio.
1944 - Operation Spring: one of the bloodiest days for the First Canadian Army during the war: 1,500 casualties, including 500 killed.

Wikipedia  Photo: Bombing of Dresden in World War II; August Schreitmüller's sculpture 'Goodness' surveys Dresden after a firestorm started by Allied bombers in 1945.
USS Bunker Hill was hit by kamikazes piloted by Ensign Kiyoshi Ogawa and another airman on 11 May 1945. 389 personnel were killed or missing from a crew of 2,600; Ensign Kiyoshi Ogawa, who flew his aircraft into the USS Bunker Hill during a Kamikaze mission on 11 May 1945; Kamikaze Missions - Lt Yoshinori Yamaguchi's Yokosuka D4Y3 (Type 33 Suisei) "Judy" in a suicide dive against USS Essex. The dive brakes are extended and the non-self-sealing port wing tank is trailing fuel vapor and/or smoke 25 November 1944.
German V1 flying-bomb and V2 Rockets - Preparations for a Salvo Launch of V-2 Rockets in the Heidelager near Blizna (Poland) (1944), credit German History in Documents and Images GHDI.

Eastern Front (World War II); Germans race towards Stalingrad. August 1942; Soviet children during a German air raid in the first days of the war, June 1941, by RIA Novosti archive; Soviet sniper Roza Shanina in 1944. About 400,000 Soviet women served in front-line duty units Caucasus Mountains, winter 1942/43; Finnish ski patrol: the invisible enemy of the Soviet Army with an unlimited supply of skis; Men of the German Engineers Corps cross a river which is swollen after the first autumn rains, to strengthen bridges linking the German positions on the central front in Russia. by Keystone / Getty Images. October 1942; Russian snipers fighting on the Leningrad front during a blizzard. Photo by Hulton Archive / Getty Images, 1943; German soldiers surrendering to the Russians in Stalingrad, the soldier holding the white flag of surrender is dressed in white so that there could be no doubt of his intentions, a Russian soldier is on the right of the photograph. by Keystone / Getty Images, January 1943.

July 25th, 1973

Soviet Mars 5 space probe launched

Soviet Mars 5 space probe launched.

Wikipedia  Photo: Russian Mars Probe

July 25th, 1978

Louise Brown, the world's first 'test tube baby' is born

Louise Brown, the world's first "test tube baby" is born.

Wikipedia  Photo: Louise Brown, world's first test tube baby