Portal:United States/On this day/April 25

April 25:

Events

• 1846 - Thornton Affair: Open conflict begins over the disputed border of Texas, triggering the Mexican–American War.
• 1847 - The last survivors of the Donner Party are out of the wilderness.
• 1861 - American Civil War: The Union Army arrives in Washington, D.C.
• 1862 - American Civil War: Forces under Union Admiral David Farragut capture the Confederate city of New Orleans.
• 1864 - American Civil War: Battle of Marks' Mills.
• 1898 - Spanish–American War: The United States declares war on Spain.
• 1901 - New York becomes the first U.S. state to require automobile license plates.
• 1938 - U.S. Supreme Court delivers opinion in Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins and overturns a century of federal common law.
• 1944 - The United Negro College Fund is incorporated.
• 1945 - Elbe Day: United States and Russian troops meet in Torgau along the River Elbe, cutting the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany in two, a milestone in the approaching end of World War II in Europe.
• 1945 - The U.S. Army blows the swastika from the top of the Zeppelintribüne.
• 1945 - Fifty nations gather in San Francisco to begin the United Nations Conference on International Organizations.
• 1953 - Francis Crick and James Watson publish Molecular structure of nucleic acids: a structure for deoxyribose nucleic acid describing the double helix structure of DNA.
• 1959 - The St. Lawrence Seaway, linking the North American Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean, officially opens to shipping.
• 1961 - Robert Noyce is granted a patent for an integrated circuit.
• 1983 - American schoolgirl Samantha Smith is invited to visit the Soviet Union by its leader Yuri Andropov after he read her letter in which she expressed fears about nuclear war.
• 1983 - Pioneer 10 travels beyond Pluto's orbit.
• 1990 - The Hubble Space Telescope was deployed from Space Shuttle Discovery into orbit.
• 2007 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average hit 13,000 for the first time in history, closing at 13,089.89