25th April

1917, American Jazz musician and popular vocalist Ella Jane Fitzgerald, was born on this day.

1945, during the latter part of WWII, General Erwin Eugen Rommel, who was known as the desert fox, for his high level of skill in desert war fare, mounted an attack on British soldiers, which forced them to retreat from the Halfaya pass in Egypt. Rommel was later made to commit suicide, when he was implicated in a conspiracy to overthrown Hitler's government. The decision was a face saving one for Rommel, due to his extraordinary service he performed as soldier,instead of being tried and executed for treason.



1961,France tests a nuclear bomb for the fourth time in the Sahara. At the time of the testing, France was desperate in its efforts at playing the leadership role in Europe and to establish it super power credentials, however events such the formation of North Atlantic Treaty Organization(NATO) and the loss of Algeria as a colony, weakened her pursuit.

1994, The final day of Apartheid in South Africa. However a series of car bombs by suspected members of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging(Afrikaner Resistance Movement)(AWB), threaten to throw the country into chaos. The AWB and its members led by Eugene Terr'Blanche were very outspoken in their opposition to the end of Apartheid, they advocated for separation of people according to skin colour and also preached white supremacy.