1901 – Cubans are beginning to fear annexation.
1905 – Rebel battle flags that were captured during the war were returned to the South.
1915 – The Navy’s first underwater disaster occurred when the submarine F-4 exploded and sank off Honolulu Harbor. 21 lives were lost. F-4 was one of the first submarines assigned to the new naval facility at Pearl Harbor in the years prior to World War I. On March 25, 1915, the submarine vanished on routine patrol, and was later discovered a mile off Fort Armstrong, 300 feet underwater. No one had ever salvaged a vessel from such a depth before, and Navy attempts proved fruitless for several months. One diver was later awarded the Medal of Honor for rescuing another diver at the crushing depths. Finally, using specially constructed pontoons, the submarine was raised on August 31, 1915 and towed to Pearl Harbor.
1928 – James A. Lovell Jr, USN, astronaut (Gemini 7, 12, Apollo 8, 13), was born in Cleveland, Oh.
1936 – Britain, the U.S. and France signed a naval accord in London.
1940 – The U.S. agreed to give Britain and France access to all American warplanes.
1942 – Rear Admiral John Wilcox commanding Task Force 39 with the battleship Washington, two cruiser and six destroyers sail for Scapa Flow to protect British home waters for the duration of Operation Ironclad — the British invasion of Vichy French controlled Madagascar. This is a reflection of the heavy Allied losses in capital ships to Japanese action in the Pacific.
1943 – By nightfall the US 1st Armored Division has nearly reached the Tebaga Gap. Von Arnim is worried about this attack and the threat from US troops at Makanssy, and therefore begins to pull his German and Italian infantry out of the Mareth Line.
1944 – On Manus, a final drive by US forces eliminates most of the remaining Japanese forces. On Los Negros, Japanese resistance has been reduced to scattered groups and isolated individuals.
1944 – Japanese patrols sight large American naval forces heading for Palau Island.
1945 – US 1st Army units, principally from US 3rd Corps, begin to break out of the Remagen bridgehead. The US 8th Corps (part of US 3rd Army) begins to cross the Rhine River near Boppard. To the south, Darmstadt is taken by US 12th Corps units who crossed at Nierstein. Other units have advanced farther east to the Main near Hanau and Aschaffenburg.
1945 – After 35 days of bitter fighting, the amphibious assault on the rocky fortress of Iwo Jima finally appeared over. On the night of 25 March, however, a 300-man Japanese force launched a vicious final counterattack in the vicinity of Airfield Number 2. Army pilots, Seabees and Marines of the 5th Pioneer Battalion and 28th Marines fought the fanatical Japanese force till morning but suffered heavy casualties –more than l00 killed and another 200 American wounded. Nearly all of the Japanese force was killed in the battle.
1945 – US Task Force 58 (Admiral Mitscher) conduct air raids on Okinawa. US TF52 (Admiral Dungin), with 17 escort carriers begin air raids on the same targets. Meanwhile, there is an American bombardment of the island of Kerama Retto, to the west of Okinawa, as well. Japanese submarines make unsuccessful attacks on the American ships. Japanese Kamikaze attacks begin, under the direction of Admiral Ugaki, with 26 planes scoring 8 hits including one on the American battleship Nevada.
1945 – American B-24 Liberator bombers of the US 5th Air Force destroy a hydroelectric power station on the island of Formosa (Taiwan).
1945 – Bombers of the US 8th Air Force bomb Hamburg with the nominal objective of striking the underground oil stores.
1948 – The first successful tornado forecast predicts that a tornado will strike Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma. The 1948 Tinker Air Force Base tornadoes were two tornadoes which struck Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma on March 20 and 25, 1948. The March 20 tornado was the costliest tornado in Oklahoma history at the time. Tinker’s meteorologists Major Ernest J. Fawbush and Captain Robert C. Miller investigated surface and upper-air weather data from this and past tornado outbreaks, hoping to be able to identify conditions which were favorable for tornadoes. By March 24, they had compiled several possible tornado indicators, and decided it would be difficult, but possible, to identify large tornado threat areas in the future. On March 25, meteorologists at the base noticed the extreme similarity between the weather conditions of that day and March 20, and later in the day issued a “tornado forecast”, which was verified when a tornado struck the base that evening. Equipment which could be, had been moved to bomb-proof shelters, and base personnel had been moved to safer areas.This was the first official tornado forecast, as well as the first successful tornado forecast, in recorded history. Due to lives and costs saved, Fawbush and Miller continued their tornado forecasts, which verified at quite a high rate over the next three years. At first, they kept their forecasts secret. In the spring and summer of 1949, they issued eighteen forecasts for tornadoes within a 100-square-mile (260 km2) ≈area, and all eighteen proved successful. In the subsequent years, while not explicitly using the word “tornado”, the Weather Bureau used the pair’s forecasts to predict “severe local storms”. The synoptic pattern which occurred on March 25 later became known as the “Miller type-B” pattern and is recognized as one of the most potent severe weather setups.
1952 – The U.S., Britain, and France rejected the Soviet proposal for an armed, reunified, neutral Germany.
1952 – Three hundred and seven U.N. fighter-bombers dropped 260 tons of bombs on the rail line between Chongju and Sinanju.
1953 – The USS Missouri fired on targets at Kojo, North Korea, the last time her guns fire until the Persian Gulf War of 1992.
1955 – E. Germany was granted full sovereignty by occupying power, USSR.
1960 – A guided missile, a Regulus I, was launched from a nuclear powered submarine, the USS Halibut, for the first time. Halibut is also the first submarine to be designed and built from the keel up to launch guided missiles.
1961 – Elvis Presley (26) performed live on the USS Arizona, a fund raiser for a memorial. Col. Parker, Presley’s manager, came up with the brilliant idea to have Elvis Presley give the benefit concert in the 4,000-seat Bloch Arena next to the entrance to Pearl Harbor.
1968 – After being told by Defense Secretary Clark Clifford that the Vietnam War is a “real loser,” President Johnson, still uncertain about his course of action, decides to convene a nine-man panel of retired presidential advisors. The group, which became known as the “Wise Men,” included the respected generals Omar Bradley and Matthew Ridgway, distinguished State Department figures like Dean Acheson and George Ball, and McGeorge Bundy, National Security advisor to both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. After two days of deliberation the group reached a consensus: they advised against any further troop increases and recommended that the administration seek a negotiated peace. Although Johnson was initially furious at their conclusions, he quickly came to believe that they were right. On March 31, Johnson announced on television that he was restricting the bombing of North Vietnam to the area just north of the Demilitarized Zone. Additionally, he committed the United States to discuss peace at any time or place. Then Johnson announced that he would not pursue reelection for the presidency.
1968 – A Harris Poll reports that in the past six weeks “basic” support for the war among Americans declined from 74 percent to 54 percent. The poll also revealed that 60 percent of those questioned regarded the Tet Offensive as a defeat of U.S. objectives in Vietnam. Despite Gen. William Westmoreland’s assurances in late 1967 that the United States was making headway in the war, the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong had launched a massive offensive during the Tet holiday that began in late January 1968. Although the communist forces were soundly defeated during this offensive, the scope and extent of the attacks won the communists a major psychological victory in the United States, where the events of Tet confirmed a growing disenchantment with the seemingly never-ending war for increasing numbers of Americans.
1975 – Hue was lost and Da Nang was endangered. The U.S. ordered a refugee airlift to remove those in danger.
1979 – The first fully functional space shuttle orbiter, Columbia, is delivered to the John F. Kennedy Space Center to be prepared for its first launch.
1980 – Three hostages are released by terrorists holding the Dominican embassy in Bogota, but U.S. Ambassador Diego Ascencio still among the captives.
1981 – The U.S. Embassy in San Salvador was damaged when gunmen attacked, firing rocket propelled grenades and machine guns.
1986 – President Ronald Reagan ordered emergency aid for the Honduran army. U.S. helicopters took Honduran troops to the Nicaraguan border.
1986 – Supreme Court ruled that the Air Force could ban wearing of yarmulkes.
1992 – Libyan leader Col. Moammar Gadhafi backed away from an offer to turn over two suspects in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 to the Arab League.
1994 - At the end of a largely unsuccessful 15-month mission, the last U.S. troops depart Somalia, leaving 20,000 U.N. troops behind to keep the peace and facilitate “nation building” in the divided country. In 1992, civil war, clan-based fighting, and the worst African drought of the century created famine conditions that threatened one-fourth of Somalia’s population with starvation. In August 1992, the United Nations began a peacekeeping mission to the country to ensure the distribution of food and medical aid. On December 4, with deteriorating security and U.N. troops unable to control Somalia’s warring factions, U.S. President George Bush ordered 25,000 U.S. troops into Somalia. Although he promised the troops involved that the humanitarian mission was not an open-ended commitment, “Operation Restore Hope” remained unresolved when Bill Clinton took over the presidency in January 1993. Like his predecessor, Clinton was anxious to bring the Americans home, and in May the mission was formally handed back to the United Nations. By June, only 4,200 U.S. troops remained. However, on June 5, 24 Pakistani U.N. peacekeepers inspecting a weapons storage site were ambushed and massacred by soldiers under Somali warlord General Mohammed Aidid. U.S. and U.N. forces subsequently began an extensive search for the elusive strongman, and in August, 400 elite U.S. troops from Delta Force and the U.S. Rangers embarked on a mission to capture Aidid. Two months later, on October 3-4, 18 of these soldiers were killed and 84 wounded during a disastrous assault on Mogadishu’s Olympia Hotel in search of Aidid. The bloody battle, which lasted 17 hours, was the most violent U.S. combat firefight since Vietnam. Three days later, with Aidid still at large, President Clinton cut his losses and ordered a total U.S. withdrawal. On March 25, 1994, the last U.S. troops left Somalia.
1995 – Two Americans who had strayed across the Kuwaiti border into Iraq were sentenced to eight years in prison. However, David Daliberti and William Barloon were released by Iraq the following July.
1996 – An 81-day standoff by the anti-government Freemen. A group of 18 people including 3 children, who call themselves the Freeman, shut themselves up on a 960 acre farm near Jordan, Montana. Many of them are wanted on state and federal charges that include writing bad checks and threatening a federal judge. Ongoing negotiations have proved fruitless and the FBI ordered in 3 armored vehicles and a helicopter.
1996 – China halted its 18-day intimidating naval exercises around Taiwan led by the new guided-missile destroyer Harbin.
1996 – France, Britain and the US signed a treaty to ban nuclear weapons from the South Pacific.
1997 - Former President George Bush, 73, parachuted from a plane over the Arizona desert.
1998 – Russia promised to support a comprehensive arms embargo against Yugoslavia, but did not support new sanctions urged by the US.
https://thisdayinusmilhist.wordpress.com/2014/03/25/march-25/1999 – NATO forces struck Serbian air defenses and other sites for a second night as Serb forces stepped up their efforts to crush resistance in Kosovo. The village of Goden was burned by Serb forces and 174 residents were forced to leave. 20 men were kept back and presumed killed.
