01010925 This Day In History, September 25

275: Marcus Claudius Tacitus was proclaimed the Emperor of Rome (see A History Of Jerusalem: Pompey And The Caesars) after the assassination of Aurelian (see also Whatever Happened To Those Romans?).

1066: The Battle of Stamford Bridge ended the last Viking invasion of England.

1396: At Nicopolis, the Ottomans under Sultan Bajazet inflicted a severe defeat on the Church of Rome "Crusaders" led by "John the Fearless" of Nevers and King Sigismund of Hungary (see Constantine's Crusades In History And Prophecy).

1513: Spanish explorer Vasco Nunez de Balboa became the first known European to sight the Pacific Ocean. He claimed the entire Pacific Ocean, and all lands anywhere that were touched by it, for Spain.

1555: In Germany, the Peace of Augsburg was declared. It was the first effort by the Holy Roman Empire to allow Lutheranism (Protestantism) and Catholicism to exist together in the Holy Roman Empire (which by then was officially known as the Holy Roman Empire of The German Nation; see The Holy Roman Empire Of The German Nation).

1629: The Truce of Altmark was signed. The 6 year peace settlement between Sweden and Poland ended the 1625-1629 phase of the Polish-Swedish War of Succession (1600-1660).

1644: Ole Romer was born. The Danish scientific researcher and astronomer was the first to accurately determine the speed of light - 186,000 miles per second. Light can travel around the entire earth 7 times in 1 second, or travel from the earth to the moon in just over 1 second. It takes light about 8 minutes to travel from the sun to the earth.

1726: The French-heritage Acadians of eastern Canada signed an English oath of allegiance on the condition they did not have to fight the French. Other Canadian Acadians left and went to the French colony of Louisiana (named after King Louis XIV of France) where "Acadian" became pronounced as "Cajun."

1818: The first human blood transfusion took place at a hospital in London, England.

1956: A transatlantic telephone cable between Britain and Canada was inaugurated with an exchange of greetings between London and Ottawa. Reaching from Oban, Scotland, to Clarenville, Newfoundland, the $42,000,000.00 cable consisted of 2 lines laid 30 kilometers apart on the ocean floor.

1996: Israeli troops and Palestinian security forces exchanged gunfire in Jerusalem and in other areas in Israel, set off by Palestinian opposition to an Israeli historical research tunnel dug in Jerusalem in the area of the Temple Mount (see David's Altar, Israel In History and Prophecy: The Temple and Raiders Of The Lost Ark). The confrontation was described as the heaviest fighting in Jerusalem since the area was captured by the Jews during the 1967 Six Day War (see Israel In History and Prophecy: Israel Of Judah and A History Of Jerusalem: War And Peace).

2008: China launched Shenzhou 7, the third human spaceflight of the Chinese space program. It included the first Chinese extra-vehicular activity (i.e. outside the spacecraft) by Zhai Zhigang and Liu Boming.