Today in History.....April 25

On this day in …

* 1792, highwayman Nicolas Jacques Pelletier became the first person under French law to be executed by the guillotine

* 1859, ground was broken for the Suez Canal

* 1886, Sigmund Freud opens practice at Rathausstrasse 7, Vienna

* 1898, the United States formally declared war on Spain

* 1901, New York becomes first state requiring auto license plates
($1 fee)

* 1905, whites win right to vote in South Africa

* 1915, during World War I, Allied soldiers invaded the Gallipoli Peninsula in an unsuccessful attempt to take the Ottoman Turkish Empire out of the war

* 1945, during World War II, U.S. and Soviet forces linked up on the Elbe River, a meeting that dramatized the collapse of Nazi Germany's defenses. ALSO: Delegates from some 50 countries met in San Francisco to organize the United Nations.

* 1953, scientists identify DNA

* 1971, about 200,000 anti-Vietnam War protesters march on Washington

* 1983, the Pioneer 10 spacecraft crossed Pluto's orbit, speeding on its endless voyage through the Milky Way

* 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope was deployed from the space shuttle Discovery

* 2001, in unusually blunt terms, President Bush warned China that an attack on Taiwan could provoke a U.S. military response. ALSO: A rescue plane flew out of the South Pole with ailing American doctor Ronald S. Shemenski in the most daring airlift ever from the pole.
Ousted Philippine President Joseph Estrada became the country's first leader to be arrested for alleged corruption in office.
Federal regulators ordered limited price controls on California wholesale electricity markets

* 2005, at his Texas ranch, President Bush prodded Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah to help curb skyrocketing oil prices