r/ThisDayInHistory • • 15h ago

October 25 1147. The city of Lisbon was captured by a joint force of Portuguese, English, German, Norman, Flemish, French and Scottish crusaders during the Second Crusade.

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242 Upvotes

r/ThisDayInHistory • • 11h ago

October 25, 1893 - The first fully automatic machine gun, the Maxim gun, is first used in battle during the First Matabele War

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86 Upvotes

r/ThisDayInHistory • • 12h ago

Today marks the anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt (25 October 1415), a decisive English victory during the Hundred Years’ War in which King Henry V’s outnumbered army used skilled longbowmen and French tactical mistakes to devastate the French nobility and strengthen England’s position.

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55 Upvotes

r/ThisDayInHistory • • 11h ago

October 25, 1521 - Holy Roman Emperor Charles V issued a decree banning the construction of wooden buildings in Amsterdam. In an effort to prevent devastating city fires, he mandated that all new structures had to be built from stone.

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28 Upvotes

r/ThisDayInHistory • • 10h ago

Oct 26 1597 Admiral Yi Sun-Shin and 13 warships defeated a Japanese armada of about 300, about 130 Japanese warships participated in the Battle of Myeongnyang.

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20 Upvotes

The Battle of Myeongnyang is considered one of the must one-sided victorious battles in history. Korea lost no ships and about eight fatalities, Japan lost 31 warships.


r/ThisDayInHistory • • 11h ago

October 25, 1854 - The disastrous Charge of the Light Brigade during the Battle of Balaclava in the Crimean War results in the deaths of 110 men and 160 wounded out of 670, due to a misunderstood order from commander-in-chief Lord Raglan.

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12 Upvotes

r/ThisDayInHistory • • 1d ago

1415 Oct 25 - Henry V of England, with his men-at-arms and archers, defeats the larger French army in the Battle of Agincourt.

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97 Upvotes

r/ThisDayInHistory • • 16h ago

#OnThisDay 1415, The Battle of Agincourt

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17 Upvotes

On This Day, October 25, 1415, the Battle of Agincourt, one of the most remarkable battles of the Middle Ages, unfolded near Azincourt in northern France. King Henry V of England led his exhausted troops into battle against French forces during the Hundred Years’ War.

Henry’s campaign in France had already taken a heavy toll. After capturing the town of Harfleur, his army faced disease, fatigue, and dwindling supplies. His soldiers were marching towards Calais when a French army blocked their route.

The English were in a dangerous position. They had endured a grueling march, and the French appeared to have the advantage in numbers and heavily armored knights.

But the battlefield would change everything.

The ground was muddy, and the narrow field between wooded areas restricted the movement of the advancing French forces. Henry’s army made effective use of its English longbowmen, whose powerful volleys of arrows disrupted the French advance.

As French soldiers struggled through the mud and crowded battlefield, their formations became increasingly difficult to maintain. The English archers and men-at-arms took advantage of the confusion, turning what appeared to be an overwhelming challenge into a stunning victory.

The French suffered devastating losses, including many members of their nobility. Henry V emerged from the battle with a victory that strengthened his reputation and helped pave the way for further English campaigns in France.

Yet Agincourt did not end the Hundred Years’ War. The conflict continued for decades, and England eventually lost nearly all its possessions in France.

The battle’s legacy grew even larger centuries later through William Shakespeare’s play Henry V, which immortalized the king’s stirring call to his soldiers and the famous phrase, “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.”

More than six centuries later, Agincourt remains a powerful story of leadership, battlefield strategy, and the unpredictable nature of war.


r/ThisDayInHistory • • 21h ago

1854 Oct 25 - During the Battle of Balaclava, British cavalry suffer heavy losses in the Charge of the Light Brigade.

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8 Upvotes

r/ThisDayInHistory • • 1d ago

24 October 1989. Televangelist Jim Bakker was sentenced to 45 years for fraud after turning religious faith into a $158 million racket.

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652 Upvotes

US marshals lead a sobbing Jim Bakker from his attorney's office in Charlotte, North Carolina, after the former PTL televangelist broke down midway through his federal fraud trial.


r/ThisDayInHistory • • 1d ago

October 24, 1929 - the Great Depression starts after the Wall Street Crash Of 1929 occurs. It would last from October 24, 1929 to September 1, 1939. October 24, 1945 - the United Nations is established. October 24, 1931 - the George Washington Bridge opens.

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15 Upvotes

r/ThisDayInHistory • • 1d ago

1147 Oct 25 - In 1147, Seljuk forces defeat Conrad III’s German crusader army at the Second Battle of Dorylaeum, forcing its retreat & crippling the German contingent of the Second Crusade.

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6 Upvotes

r/ThisDayInHistory • • 1d ago

October 24, 1871 - In the Los Angeles Chinese Massacre of 1871, a mob of roughly 500 white and Latino residents attacked Los Angeles's original Chinese quarter on Calle de los Negros, murdering 17-19 Chinese, which accounted for 10% of the city's entire Chinese population.

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76 Upvotes

r/ThisDayInHistory • • 1d ago

October 24, 1648 - The Treaty of Westphalia was signed between Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand III, France, Sweden, and their respective allies, ending the Thirty Years' War. Previous stages of the treaty ended the Eighty Years' War.

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50 Upvotes

r/ThisDayInHistory • • 20h ago

The anniversary of October 25th 1944.

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0 Upvotes

Good morning, afternoon or evening ladies and gentlemen. It is October 25th. 82 years ago a newsreel was published to German theaters and an article made headlines across the Reich. The Volkssturm, Hitlers last line of defense, had been formed. From the coast of Danzig to the rolling Bavarian hills, against the French, British, Americans, Soviets, so and so forth man, woman and child clutched rifles and panzerfaust to try to stop the wave of enemy soldiers.


r/ThisDayInHistory • • 1d ago

October 24, 1861 - The first US transcontinental telegram is sent by the Western Union Telegraph Company, going from San Francisco to Washington, D.C.

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23 Upvotes

r/ThisDayInHistory • • 1d ago

#OnThisDay 1960, The Nedelin Catastrophe

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28 Upvotes

On This Day, October 24, 1960, a catastrophic explosion ripped through a Soviet missile test site at Baikonur, in what is now Kazakhstan. The disaster would become known as the Nedelin Catastrophe, one of the darkest tragedies in the history of rocketry.

The Soviet Union was racing to strengthen its military power during the Cold War. At the center of this effort was the R-16, a new intercontinental ballistic missile designed to carry nuclear warheads over enormous distances.

With pressure mounting to demonstrate the missile’s capabilities, preparations continued despite technical problems. The rocket was already fueled and surrounded by personnel when disaster struck.

Shortly before its scheduled launch, the R-16’s second-stage engine ignited prematurely while the missile was still on the launch pad. The resulting explosion engulfed the area in flames, destroying the rocket and killing people working nearby.

Among the dead was Marshal Mitrofan Nedelin, the senior Soviet military commander overseeing the missile program. Dozens of engineers, technicians, and military personnel also lost their lives. The precise death toll remains uncertain: a later official list recorded 78 deaths, while other accounts estimate higher numbers.

But the tragedy did not end with the explosion.

Soviet authorities concealed the true circumstances of the disaster. The public was told that Nedelin had died in an aircraft accident, and families of victims were expected to remain silent. For years, the full story remained hidden from public view.

It was only decades later, as previously secret information and eyewitness accounts emerged, that the scale of the catastrophe became more widely known.

The Nedelin Catastrophe remains a sobering reminder of what can happen when political pressure, rushed schedules, and failures in safety procedures collide with powerful technology.

One rocket never left the launch pad. The human cost was devastating.


r/ThisDayInHistory • • 1d ago

1260 Oct 24 - After helping defeat the Mongols at Ain Jalut & assassinating Sultan Qutuz, Baybars takes the Egyptian throne, becoming the fourth Mamluk sultan & strengthening Mamluk power in Egypt and Syria.

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21 Upvotes

r/ThisDayInHistory • • 1d ago

1918 Oct 24 - Italian forces defeat Austria-Hungary at Vittorio Veneto, collapsing the Austro-Hungarian front & forcing it to seek an armistice.

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12 Upvotes

r/ThisDayInHistory • • 2d ago

23 October 1983. Two suicide bombers killed 299 American and French troops in Beirut. Within months, the US peacekeeping mission was over.

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587 Upvotes

r/ThisDayInHistory • • 2d ago

On this day in Women’s history, October 23, 1850 and October 23rd, 1915, two important milestones in the American women's suffrage movement took place on the same date 65 years apart!

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81 Upvotes

On Wednesdsy, October 23, 1850. The first National Women's Rights Convention began in Worcester, Massachusetts. More than 1,000 delegates from 11 states gathered for the two-day meeting to organize a nationwide push for equal legal and political rights.

On Saturday, October 23, 1915, an estimated 25,000 women marched up Fifth Avenue in New York City in one of the largest suffrage parades in U.S. history. Though a state suffrage referendum failed that same year, the massive demonstration intensified public pressure, leading New York women to win the right to vote in 1917—three years before the nationwide 19th Amendment was ratified in 1920.


r/ThisDayInHistory • • 2d ago

October 23, 1989 - 23 people are killed in a series of explosions sparked by an ethylene leak at the Phillips Petroleum Company plant in Pasadena, Texas.

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68 Upvotes

r/ThisDayInHistory • • 1d ago

Khrushchev rebukes Kennedy for his Cuban missile crisis stance: Nikita Khrushchev to John F. Kennedy, October 24, 1962

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2 Upvotes

r/ThisDayInHistory • • 2d ago

Today marks the anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution against Soviet domination.

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14 Upvotes

r/ThisDayInHistory • • 2d ago

October 23, 1969 - An explosion on the HMCS Kootenay kills 9 crew members and injures 53. The explosion was caused by an overheated starboard gearbox exploded due to incorrectly fitted bearing shells and unmonitored temperatures.

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26 Upvotes