12 History Lessons + 7 Births & 7 Deaths for October 4, 2025
Today’s History:
- 1582 – Pope Gregory XIII introduces the Gregorian calendar.
- 1777 – Battle of Germantown: Washington’s assault on British forces is repelled near Philadelphia.
- 1824 – Mexico adopts a new federal constitution.
- 1830 – Provisional Belgian government formally secedes from the Netherlands.
- 1927 – Gutzon Borglum begins carving Mount Rushmore.
- 1936 – The Battle of Cable Street erupts in London as anti-fascists clash with police and British Union of Fascists.
- 1957 – USSR launches Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite, starting the Space Age.
- 1965 – Pope Paul VI becomes the first pontiff to address the United Nations.
- 1966 – Lesotho gains independence from the United Kingdom.
- 1992 – Mozambique’s civil war ends with the Rome General Peace Accords.
- 2001 – Siberia Airlines Flight 1812 is accidentally shot down by a Ukrainian missile over the Black Sea, killing 78.
- 2004 – SpaceShipOne wins the $10M Ansari X Prize after its second qualifying suborbital flight.
Today’s Birthdays:
- 1944 – Tony La Russa, Baseball Hall of Fame manager (81).
- 1946 – Susan Sarandon, Academy Award–winning actress (79).
- 1956 – Christoph Waltz, two-time Oscar-winning actor (69).
- 1967 – Liev Schreiber, actor/director (Ray Donovan) (58).
- 1976 – Alicia Silverstone, actress (Clueless) (49).
- 1988 – Derrick Rose, NBA guard, 2011 MVP (37).
- 1989 – Dakota Johnson, actress (Fifty Shades, The Lost Daughter) (36).
Today’s Deaths:
- 1669 – Rembrandt, Dutch master painter (63).
- 1947 – Max Planck, Nobel Prize–winning physicist, father of quantum theory (89).
- 1970 – Janis Joplin, rock singer (27).
- 1982 – Glenn Gould, Canadian classical pianist (50).
- 1989 – Graham Chapman, comedian/writer (Monty Python) (48).
- 2019 – Diahann Carroll, pioneering Black actress and singer (84).
- 2022 – Loretta Lynn, country music icon (90).
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