October 25 is:
National Greasy Foods Day
Feast Day of Saints Crispin and Crispinian, patron saints of cobblers, curriers, tanners, and leather workers. It is said that they were brothers who spread Christianity during the day and made shoes at night to support themselves. They were tortured and thrown into the river with millstones around their necks. Though they survived, they were beheaded by the Emperor on October 25th, 285 or 286.
“St. Crispin’s Day” is referred to by William Shakespeare in Henry V describing the battle of Agincourt, from which we get the phrase “the band of brothers”.
Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember’d;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers
1825 Birthday of Johann Strauss II, Austrian composer. Compositions such as The Blue Danube helped establish Strauss as “the Waltz King” and earned him a place in music history.
Birthday of Georges Bizet (October 25, 1838), French composer whose most famous work is the opera “Carmen”. Carmen has since become one of the most popular and frequently performed operas in the classical canon; the “Habanera” from act 1 and the “Toreador Song” from act 2 are among the best known of all operatic arias.
The Habanera
Birthday of Pablo Ruiz Picasso (October 25, 1881), Spanish-born painter and sculptor; founder of the Cubist school and leader in the surrealistic movement in France. Please visit Wikiart for pictures of his work.
Birthday of Richard Evelyn Byrd (October 25, 1888), American naval officer and polar explorer who made five important expeditions to the Antarctic. He was a recipient of the Medal of Honor, the highest honor for valor given by the United States, and was a pioneering American aviator, polar explorer, and organizer of polar logistics.
Former First Lady,Carolyn Harrison, wife of Benjamin Harrison, died on this day in 1892 of tuberculosis. She was the second First Lady to die while her husband was President, the first one being Letitia Tyler in 1842.
1929 Former Interior Secretary Albert B. Fall was convicted of accepting $100,000 bribe in the Teapot scandal. He was the first US Cabinet member to go to jail.
Fall was appointed to the position of Secretary of the Interior by President Warren G. Harding in March 1921. He had been a U. S. Senator from New Mexico. Soon after his appointment, Harding convinced Edwin Denby, the Secretary of the Navy, that Fall’s department should take over responsibility for the Naval Reserves at Elk Hills, California, Buena Vista, California, and Teapot Dome, Wyoming. This last setting became the namesake of the scandal to erupt in April 1922 when The Wall Street Journal reported that Secretary Fall had decided that two of his friends, oilmen Harry F. Sinclair (Mammoth Oil Corporation) and Edward L. Doheny (Pan-American Petroleum and Transport Company), should be given leases to drill in parts of these Naval Reserves without open bidding. His acceptance of bribes for the leases resulted in the Teapot Dome scandal.
From Today in Science
Microwave oven
In 1955, the first domestic microwave oven was sold by Tappan. In 1947, Raytheon demonstrated the “Radarange,” the world’s first microwave oven. Ratheon’s commercial, refrigerator-sized microwave ovens cost between $2,000 and $3,000. In 1952, Raytheon entered into a licensing agreement with Tappan Stove Company which had a consumer distribution and marketing infrastructure. In 1955, Tappan introduced the first domestic microwave oven, a 220-volt more compact wall-unit the size of a conventional oven, but less powerful microwave generating system. It had two cooking speeds (500 or 800 watts), stainless steel exterior, glass shelf, top browning element and a recipe card drawer. However, at $1,300 sales were slow.
2001 Microsoft released the Windows XP operating system.