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Year
1832
Month Day
July 25

The first railroad accident

The first recorded railroad accident in U.S. history occurs when four people are thrown off a vacant car on the Granite Railway near Quincy, Massachusetts. The victims had been invited to view the process of transporting large and weighty loads of stone when a cable on a vacant car snapped on the return trip, throwing them off the train and over a 34-foot cliff. One man was killed and the others were seriously injured.

The acceptance of railroads came quickly in the 1830s, and by 1840 the nation had almost 3,000 miles of railway, greater than the combined European total of only 1,800 miles. The railroad network expanded quickly in the years before the Civil War, and by 1860 the American railroad system had become a national network of some 30,000 miles. Nine years later, transcontinental railroad service became possible for the first time.

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ALSO ON THIS DAY

Inventions & Science
1978

World’s first "test tube" baby born

On July 25, 1978, Louise Joy Brown, the world’s first baby to be conceived via in vitro fertilization (IVF) is born at Oldham and District General Hospital in Manchester, England, to parents Lesley and Peter Brown. The healthy baby was delivered shortly before midnight by ...read more

1950s
1956

Ships collide off Nantucket

At 11:10 p.m., 45 miles south of Nantucket Island, the Italian ocean liner Andrea Doria and the Swedish ocean liner Stockholm collide in a heavy Atlantic fog. Fifty-one passengers and crew were killed in the collision, which ripped a great hole in the broad side of the Italian ...read more

United States
1898

U.S. forces invade Puerto Rico

During the Spanish-American War, U.S. forces launch their invasion of Puerto Rico, the approximately 110-mile-long, 35-mile-wide island that was one of Spain’s two principal possessions in the Caribbean. With little resistance and only seven deaths, U.S. troops under General ...read more

World War II
1943

Benito Mussolini falls from power

On July 25, 1943, Benito Mussolini, fascist dictator of Italy, is voted out of power by his own Grand Council and arrested upon leaving a meeting with King Vittorio Emanuele, who tells Il Duce that the war is lost. Mussolini responded to it all with an uncharacteristic meekness. ...read more

World War I
1917

Dancer and spy Mata Hari sentenced to die

In Paris, France, on July 25, 1917, the exotic dancer Mata Hari is sentenced to death by a French court for spying on Germany’s behalf during World War I. Since 1903, Margueretha Gertruida Zelle, born in a small town in northern Holland and formerly married to a captain in the ...read more

Sports
1992

Opening of the XXV Olympiad in Barcelona

On July 25, 1992, the opening ceremonies of the Games of the XXV Olympiad are held in Barcelona, Spain. The Barcelona Olympics were the first ever in which professional athletes were allowed to participate, and the first Games since 1972 in which every member nation of the ...read more

World War II
1945

Truman drops hint to Stalin about a "terrible" new weapon

On July 25, 1945, President Harry S. Truman hints to Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin that the United States has successfully developed a new weapon. In his diary, Truman privately referred to the new weapon, the atomic bomb, as the most terrible bomb in the history of the world. ...read more

Westward Expansion
1853

California Rangers kill Joaquin Murrieta

In a macabre instance of rough frontier justice, California Rangers claim a $6,000 award by bringing in the severed head—preserved in whiskey—of outlaw Joaquin Murrieta. In the early months of 1853, a wild band of desperadoes began terrorizing Calaveras County in central ...read more

Art, Literature, and Film History
1965

Dylan goes electric at the Newport Folk Festival

Before he took the stage at the 1964 Newport Folk Festival—the annual event that had given him his first real national exposure one year earlier—Bob Dylan was introduced by Ronnie Gilbert, a member of The Weavers: “And here he is…take him, you know him, he’s yours.” In his 2004 ...read more

Art, Literature, and Film History
1897

Jack London sails for the Klondike

Jack London leaves for the Klondike to join the gold rush, where he will write his first successful stories. London was born in San Francisco in 1876. His father, an astrologer named Chaney, abandoned the family, and his mother, a spiritualist and music teacher, remarried. Jack ...read more

Art, Literature, and Film History
1985

Rock Hudson announces he has AIDS

On July 25, 1985, Rock Hudson, a quintessential tall, dark and handsome Hollywood leading man of the 1950s and 1960s who made more than 60 films during his career, announces through a press release that he is suffering from acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). With that ...read more

Natural Disasters & Environment
2000

Concorde jet crashes, killing everyone onboard

An Air France Concorde jet crashes upon takeoff in Paris on July 25, 2000, killing 109 passengers and crew onboard as well as four people on the ground. The Concorde, the world’s fastest commercial jet, had enjoyed an exemplary safety record up to that point, with no crashes in ...read more

Crime
1988

A young man turns the death of his parents into a game

Police responding to an emergency call in Washington, North Carolina, find Lieth and Bonnie Von Stein stabbed and beaten in their home. Lieth was dead, but Bonnie, barely clinging to life, somehow survived. Angela, Bonnie’s 18-year-old daughter, was found in the next room; she ...read more

Vietnam War
1969

The Nixon Doctrine is announced

President Richard Nixon announces that henceforth the United States will expect its Asian allies to tend to their own military defense. The Nixon Doctrine, as the president’s statement came to be known, clearly indicated his determination to “Vietnamize” the Vietnam War. When ...read more

Inventions & Science
1941

Henry Ford writes fan letter to Mahatma Gandhi

On July 25, 1941, the American automaker Henry Ford sits down at his desk in Dearborn, Michigan and writes a letter to the Indian nationalist leader Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. The letter effusively praises Gandhi and his campaign of civil disobedience aimed at forcing the ...read more