May 25 birthdays & history

Famous people born on May 25

• 1803Ralph Waldo Emerson, American poet and philosopher
• 1865Pieter Zeeman, Dutch physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
• 1939Ian McKellen, English actor
• 1976Cillian Murphy, Irish actor
• 1963Mike Myers, Canadian-American actor, singer, producer, and screenwriter
• 1803Edward Bulwer-Lytton, English author, playwright, and politician, Secretary of State for the Colonies
• 1889Igor Sikorsky, Russian-American aircraft designer, founded Sikorsky Aircraft
• 1921Jack Steinberger, German-Swiss physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
• 1970Octavia Spencer, American actress and author[a]
• 1939Dixie Carter, American actress and singer

What happened on May 25

• 1787The Constitutional Convention met in Philadelphia with the intention of revising the Articles of Confederation of the United States.
• 1816The poems Kubla Khan and Christabel by English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge were published.
• 1819The Argentine Constitution of 1819 is promulgated.
• 1833The Chilean Constitution of 1833 is promulgated.
• 1878Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera H.M.S. Pinafore (poster featured) premiered at the Opera Comique in London.
• 1895The Republic of Formosa is formed, with Tang Jingsong as its president.
• 1955Joe Brown and George Band, members of the British Kangchenjunga expedition, made the first ascent of the world's third-highest mountain but deliberately did not set foot on the summit.
• 1961In an address to Congress, U.S. president John F. Kennedy announced his support for the Apollo program, with "the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth".
• 1962The Baltimore Steam Packet Company, the last overnight steamboat service in the United States, went out of business.
• 1979Six-year-old Etan Patz disappeared on his way to school in New York City, and later became one of the first missing children to have his picture featured on milk cartons.
• 2011The final episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show, the highest-rated daytime talk show in U.S. television history, hosted by Oprah Winfrey, was broadcast.
• 2012In a test flight, SpaceX's Dragon became the first commercial spacecraft to rendezvous and berth with the International Space Station.

Also observed on May 25

• Africa Day (African Union)
• African Liberation Day (African Union, Rastafari)
• First National Government / National Day (Argentina)
• Geek Pride Day (geek culture)
• Independence Day, celebrates the independence of Jordan from the United Kingdom in 1946.
• Last bell (Russia, post-Soviet countries)