This Day In History

April 25
1644
The Chongzhen Emperor, the last Emperor of Ming Dynasty China, commits suicide during a peasant rebellion led by Li Zicheng.
1859
British and French engineers break ground for the Suez Canal.
1920
At the San Remo conference, the principal Allied Powers of World War I adopt a resolution to determine the allocation of Class "A" League of Nations mandates for administration of the former Ottoman-ruled lands of the Middle East.
1945
Fifty nations gather in San Francisco, California to begin the United Nations Conference on International Organizations.
1953
Francis Crick and James D. Watson publish Molecular structure of nucleic acids: a structure for deoxyribose nucleic acid describing the double helix structure of DNA.
1982
Israel completes its withdrawal from the Sinai peninsula per the Camp David Accords.
1988
In Israel, John Demjanuk is sentenced to death for war crimes committed in World War II.
2007
Boris Yeltsin's funeral the first to be sanctioned by the Russian Orthodox Church for a head of state since the funeral of Emperor Alexander III in 1894.