October 25

285 or 286 – Execution of Saints Crispin and Crispinian during the reign of Diocletian, now the patron saints of leather workers, curriers, and shoemakers. 473 – Emperor Leo I acclaims his grandson Leo II as Caesar of the East Roman Empire. 1147 – Seljuk Turks defeat German crusaders under Conrad III at the Battle of Dorylaeum. 1147 – Reconquista: After a siege of four months, crusader knights reconquer Lisbon. 1415 – Hundred Years' War: Henry V of England, with his lightly armoured infantry and archers, defeats the heavily armoured French cavalry in the Battle of Agincourt. 1616 – Dutch sea-captain Dirk Hartog makes the second recorded landfall by a European on Australian soil, at the later-named Dirk Hartog Island off the West Australian coast. 1747 – War of the Austrian Succession: A British fleet under Admiral Edward Hawke defeats the French at the Second Battle of Cape Finisterre. 1760 – King George III succeeds to the British throne on the death of his grandfather George II. 1809 – Golden Jubilee of George III is celebrated in Britain as he begins the fiftieth year of his reign. 1812 – War of 1812: The American frigate, , commanded by Stephen Decatur, captures the British frigate . 1822 – Greek War of Independence: The First Siege of Missolonghi begins. 1854 – The Battle of Balaclava takes place during the Crimean War. It is soon memorialized in verse as The Charge of the Light Brigade. 1861 – The Toronto Stock Exchange is created. 1868 – The Uspenski Cathedral, designed by Aleksey Gornostayev, is inaugurated in Helsinki, Finland. 1900 – The United Kingdom annexes the Transvaal. 1911 – The Xinhai Revolution spreads to Guangzhou, where the Qing general Feng-shan is assassinated by the Chinese Assassination Corps. 1917 – Old Style date of the October Revolution in Russia. 1920 – After 74 days on hunger strike in Brixton Prison, England, the Sinn Féin Lord Mayor of Cork, Terence MacSwiney dies. 1924 – The Zinoviev letter, which Zinoviev himself denied writing, is published in the Daily Mail; the Labour party would later blame this letter for the Conservatives' landslide election win four days later.