Hollow Leg History | What Happened on This Date, September 25? - a podcast by The Hollow Leg

1066 

Battle of Stamford Bridge: English army under King Harold Godwinson defeat invading Norwegians led by King Harald Hardrada and Harold's brother Tostig, who were both killed. Although Harold Godwinson repelled the Norwegian invaders, his victory was short-lived. Three days after the battle, on 28 September, a second invasion army led by William, Duke of Normandy, landed in Pevensey Bay, Sussex, on the south coast of England. Harold had to immediately turn his troops around and force-march them southwards to intercept the Norman army. Less than three weeks after Stamford Bridge, the English army was decisively defeated and King Harold II fell in action at the Battle of Hastings. The battle has traditionally been presented as symbolising the end of the Viking Age, although major Scandinavian campaigns in Britain and Ireland occurred in the following decades. Harald Hardrada invaded England in the hopes of securing the English crown for himself.

1396

One of the last large-scale Christian crusades, the Crusade of Nicopolis, led jointly by John the Fearless of Nevers and King Sigismund of Hungary, ends in disaster at the hands of Sultan Bayezid I's Ottoman army at Nicopolis. By their victory at Nicopolis, the Turks discouraged the formation of future European coalitions against them. They maintained their pressure on Constantinople (modern day Istanbul; eventually capturing it in 1453), tightened their control over the Balkans, and became a greater threat to central Europe. No new expedition was launched from Western Europe to stop the Turkish advance in the Balkans after this defeat, until 1444 when an army of Hungarians, Poles and Walachians were defeated at the Battle of Varna.

1965

The Kansas City Athletics start ageless wonder Satchel Paige in a game against the Boston Red Sox. The 59-year-old Paige, a Negro League legend, proved his greatness once again by giving up only one hit in his three innings of play. Before the game, Paige sat in the bullpen in a rocking chair while a nurse rubbed liniment into his pitching arm for the entire crowd to see. Any doubts about Paige’s ability were put to rest when he set down each of the Red Sox batters he faced except for Carl Yastremski, who hit a double. Arguably the greatest pitcher of his era, Paige was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1971.

2005

The Irish Republican Army (IRA) gives up its weapons in front of independent weapons inspectors. The decommissioning of the group's substantial arsenal took place in secret locations in the Republic of Ireland. One Protestant and one Catholic priest as well as officials from Finland and the United States served as witnesses to the historic event. Automatic weapons, ammunition, missiles and explosives were among the arms found in the cache, which the head weapons inspector described as “enormous.” Originally founded in 1919 to militarily oppose British rule in Ireland, the IRA had operated since about the 1960s as the military arm of Sinn Fein, the Irish nationalist political party. The IRA (and splinter groups using various derivatives of the name) had used terrorist tactics and assassinations for more than 30 years in their struggle to free Northern Ireland from British rule.

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