A Brief History This article presents a chronological list of notable events that happened on February 25th.  For each date below, please click on the date to be taken to an article covering that date’s event. Digging Deeper On February 25, 1336, the 4,000 defenders of the medieval Lithuanian fortress of Pilénai thought they had no other choice but to make the horrible decision to kill themselves and their families after torching and destroying everything they had of value to deny their Teutonic besiegers the spoils of victory and the opportunity to kill or enslave them. On February 25, 1836, Samuel Colt of Hartford Connecticut…

A Brief History On February 25, 1870, history was made when Hiram Rhodes Revels, an African American man from Mississippi, was sworn in as a US Senator, the first African American member of the US Congress. Digging Deeper Despite being born in North Carolina in 1827, Revels was not born a slave, and later lived in Indiana and Ohio.  The son of a Baptist minister, Revels was educated in Quaker seminaries and at Knox College, in Illinois, later being ordained in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Revels served in the US Army during the American Civil War as a chaplain,…

A Brief History This article presents a chronological list of notable events that happened on February 24th.  For each date below, please click on the date to be taken to an article covering that date’s event. Digging Deeper On February 24, 1597, the Battle of Santavuori Hill was fought in Finland, the final battle of the Cudgel War. On February 24, 1920, the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (“German Workers’ Party,” or DAP) changed its name to the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (“National Socialist German Workers’ Party”, or Nazi Party), with the word “Socialist” being added by the party’s executive committee, over Adolf Hitler’s objections,…

A Brief History On February 24, 1597, the Battle of Santavuori Hill was fought in Finland, the final battle of the Cudgel War. Digging Deeper You may know a cudgel is a thick stick or club used as a weapon, and in an age of firearms and sophisticated steel armor and weapons the cudgel may have seemed out of date.  As they say, necessity is the mother of invention, and the peasants fighting for Finland against the oppressors from Sweden had to make do against their well-armed and well armored foes. Blunt force weapons such as cudgels, maces, and flails…

A Brief History This article presents a chronological list of notable events that happened on February 23rd.  For each date below, please click on the date to be taken to an article covering that date’s event. Digging Deeper On February 23, 1778, the Baron von Steuben arrived at Valley Forge to assist George Washington with training the Continental Army. On February 23, 1896, dentists all over the world must have felt the Earth shake, for on that day the Tootsie Roll was introduced. On February 23, 1903, Cuba made a deal with the United States to lease 45 square miles…