Born on this day 25th February
1841 Pierre Auguste Renoir
1901 Zeppo Marx
1943 George Harrison
1937 Sir Tom Courtney
1938 Herb Elliott
1941 Lord (David) Puttnam
1945 Elkie Brooks
1964 Lee Evans
1967 Nick Leeson

Died on this day
1723 Sir Christopher Wren
1983 Tennessee Williams
2001 Sir Don Bradman

Music

1968 The New York Times referred to Jimi Hendrix as ‘The black Elvis’.

1976 Cellist Jacqueline Du Pre went to Buckingham Palace to receive her OBE from the Queen.

1989 The then recently deceased Roy Orbison sang on the Top two CDs in the US:The Travelling Wilburys and his own ‘Mystery Girl’.

Sport

1882 The first international football match between Wales and Ireland took place at Wrexham, with Wales winning 7 to 1.
1964 Cassius Clay knocked out Sonny Liston in the seventh round of their fight in Miami, winning the world heavyweight boxing title for the first time.

1992 Despite playing with the knowledge that his father was critically ill after being shot in Bangkok, Thai snooker player James Wattana became only the second person to record a maximum 147 break during tournament play, winning his match against Tony Drago 5-1. Only moments after the match, however, he discovered that his father had died from his wounds.

People & Showbiz

1980 The first episode of the BBC sitcom ‘Yes, Minister’ was broadcast. The first episode was titled ‘Open Government’.

1988 The Princess of Wales attended the charity premiere of Bernado Bertolucci’s ‘The Last Emperor’ at the Odeon, Leicester Square.

General Events

1862 The first American banknotes were introduced by Abraham Lincoln, during the Civil War.

1946 The first bananas arrived in Britain since the war.

1955 Britain’s largest aircraft carrier, HMS Ark Royal, was completed.

1978 Gerry Adams was charged in Belfast with being a member of the IRA.

1989 Banking family matriarch Dorothy Rothschild who died in 1988 left more than £92.8m in her will. It was believed to be the largest estate ever certified in Britain.

1990 A team of British and Russian scientists called Eclipse 90 had chartered a Concorde in an attempt to get the best view of a total eclipse of the sun by filming from the plane while it flies above the Soviet Union.

1991 In the Gulf crisis, the allied offensive into Iraq and Kuwait swept ahead with whole batallions of Iraqis surrendering. The American marine commander predicted that victory could come ‘in a matter of days, not weeks’. Later in the day Saddam Hussein ordered his troops to pull out of Kuwait.