On This Day: February 25

This is the 56th day of the year.

Fact of the Day: chowder

Chowder is a thick, chunky seafood soup, of which clam chowder is the most well known. The term is also used to describe any thick, rich soup containing chunks of food, e.g. corn chowder. The name comes from the French chaudière, a caldron in which fishermen made their stews fresh from the sea. From the fishing villages of Brittany, the custom was probably carried to Newfoundland, from which it spread to Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and New England. New England-style chowder is made with milk or cream and potatoes and Manhattan-style has tomatoes.

Holidays

Feast day of St. Ethelbert of Kent, St. Walburga, St. Gerland, St. Louis Versiglia, St. Caesarius of Nazianzen, and St. Calixto Caravario.

Kuwait: National Day.

Events

1570 - Pope Pius the Fifth excommunicated England's Queen Elizabeth I.

1601 - Robert Devereux, the second Earl of Essex and former favorite of Elizabeth I, was beheaded in the Tower of London for high treason.

1779 - The British surrendered the Illinois country to Lieutenant George Rogers Clark at Vincennes, Indiana.

1793 - President George Washington held the first Cabinet meeting.

1836 - Samuel Colt patented his revolver.

1901 - United States Steel Corporation was incorporated by J.P. Morgan.

1913 - The Sixteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, authorizing the income tax, went into effect.

1919 - Oregon became the first state to tax gasoline.

1950 - "Your Show of Shows" starring Sid Caesar, Imogene Coca, Carl Reiner, and Howard Morris debuted on TV.

1964 - Cassius Clay dethroned world heavyweight boxing champ Sonny Liston in a seventh-round technical knockout. Clay then announced his conversion to Islam, changing his name to Muhammad Ali.

1976 - U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states may ban the hiring of illegal aliens.

1986 - President Ferdinand E. Marcos fled the Philippines after 20 years of rule; Corazon Aquino assumed the presidency.

1988 - American televangelist Jimmy Swaggart was defrocked by the Assemblies of God for one year after it became known that he had visited a prostitute for three years.

2005 - Dennis Rader was arrested near his home for the BTK serial killings that terrorized Wichita, Kansas between 1974 and 1991.

2006 - The world's estimated population reaches 6.5 billion.

Births

1841 - Pierre Renoir, French Impressionist artist.

1873 - Enrico Caruso, Italian-born opera singer.

1910 - Millicent Fenwick, human rights activist, U.S. congresswoman.

1918 - Bobby Riggs, American tennis player.

1943 - George Harrison, Academy Award and Grammy Award-winning English musician best known as the lead guitarist of the Beatles.

1961 - Davey Allison, NASCAR race car driver.

Deaths

1860 - Chauncey Allen Goodrich, American clergyman, educator, and lexicographer.

1983 - Tennessee Williams, American dramatist.

2005 - Peter Benenson, English founder of human rights group Amnesty International.

2006 - Darren McGavin (born William Lyle Richardson), American actor.