| 25 April 1185 | Japan [wars] | At the naval battle of Dan-no-ura the Japanese Minamoto clan finally destroys the Taira samurai clan. Minamoto Yoritomo, adopting the title Sei-i-tai Shogun (‘barbarian-suppressing generalissimo’), becomes the effective ruler of Japan, making his capital at Kamakura (near Tokyo). Rule by the shoguns (military rulers) continues in Japan until 1868. |
| 25 April 1282 | England [political events] | The Welsh revolt against King Edward I of England collapses with the surrender of Harlech Castle to the English. |
| 25 April 1568 | Holy Roman Empire, Spanish Netherlands [Dutch Revolt (1598–1609)] | A German force in the pay of William the Silent, Prince of Orange, and led by Jean de Montigny, lord of Villers, is destroyed by the Spanish Habsburg forces at Dalheim in Limburg, the Netherlands, in a major setback to William's plans for a concerted Protestant attack on the Spanish authorities. Calvinist terrorists in Flanders (called the ‘Bosgeuzen’, or ‘ Wood Beggers’) have been rounded up in February. |
| 25 April 1599 | England [births and deaths] | Oliver Cromwell, English soldier and statesman, commander of parliamentarian forces in the English Civil Wars (1642–51), Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland 1653–58, born in Huntingdon, England (–1658). |
| 25 April–29 December 1660 | UK [administration] | The Convention Parliament assembles and on 8 May the accession of Charles II as king of England is proclaimed in London, England. |
| 25 April 1874 | Italy [births and deaths] | Guglielmo Marconi, Italian physicist and inventor of radio, born in Bologna, Italy (–1937). |
| 25 April 1900 | Austria [births and deaths] | Wolfgang Pauli, Austrian-born US physicist, who discovers the principle that no two electrons in the same atom can have the same energy, born in Vienna, Austria (–1958). |
| 25 April–12 October 1920 | Russia, Poland [wars] | A Polish offensive is launched under Joseph Pilsudski, which aims to capture the Ukraine. The action begins the Polish–Russian War. |
| 25 April 1945 | USA [international organizations] | The United Nations Conference on International Organization (UNCIO) in San Francisco, California, attended by representatives of 50 nations, drafts the Charter of the United Nations (UN). |
| 25 April 1953 | England, USA [biology] | English molecular biologist Francis Crick and US biologist James Watson announce the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA, the basic material of heredity. They also theorize that if the strands are separated then each can form the template for the synthesis of an identical DNA molecule. It is perhaps the most important discovery in biology. |
| 25–26 April 1974 | Portugal, Angola, Mozambique, Portuguese Guinea [political events] | General Antônio Ribeiro de Spínola leads a successful coup in Portugal. On 26 April, the junta vows to dismantle the authoritarian state and end the wars in Angola, Mozambique, and Portuguese Guinea (now Guinea-Bissau). |
| 25 April 1975 | Portugal [elections] | The first free elections in Portugal since the 1920s fail to produce an overall majority. The Socialists under Mario Soares emerge as the largest party. |
| 25 April 1980 | USA, Iran [political events] | A US commando mission to rescue US hostages in Iran fails with the loss of eight lives. |
| 25 April 1982 | UK [political events] | British commandos recapture South Georgia from the small Argentine force occupying the island. |
| 25 April 1989 | UK [health and medicine] | The British Parliament reduces the legal abortion period from 28 to 24 weeks. |
