On January 25

Arab Spring: The Egyptian revolution began with protests on the "Day of Anger", eventually leading to the removal of President Hosni Mubarak after nearly 30 years of rule.

Avatar, a science-fiction film directed by James Cameron, became the highest-grossing film of all time.

Ethiopian Airlines Flight 409, en route to Addis Ababa, crashed into the Mediterranean Sea shortly after takeoff from Beirut, Lebanon, killing all 90 people on board.

Three independent observing campaigns announced the discovery of OGLE-2005-BLG-390Lb, a super-Earth 21,500 ± 3,300 light-years away from Earth near the center of the Milky Way.

Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity landed on Mars and rolled into Eagle crater, a small crater on the Meridiani Planum.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam detonated a truck bomb at the sacred Buddhist Temple of the Tooth in Kandy, killing 17 people.

A team of Norwegian and American scientists launched a Black Brant XII sounding rocket, which was mistaken by Russian forces for a Trident missile.

Pakistani national Mir Aimal Kansi shot five people outside the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Langley, Virginia, killing two.

Avianca Flight 52 ran out of fuel on approach to John F. Kennedy International Airport and crashed into the village of Cove Neck, New York, resulting in the deaths of 73 people.

Idi Amin seized power from Ugandan president Milton Obote in a coup d'état, beginning eight years of military rule.

South Vietnamese junta leader Nguyễn Cao Kỳ fired his rival Nguyễn Hữu Có while the latter was overseas on a diplomatic visit.

Representatives of the Chetnik movement began a four-day congress to organise political opposition to the Allied support of the communist-led Yugoslav Partisans in Yugoslavia.

Serving as a British armed merchant cruiser, Laurentic (pictured) was sunk by German naval mines off the northern coast of Ireland, resulting in 354 deaths.

American journalist Nellie Bly (pictured) completed a circumnavigation of the globe by land and sea in a then-record-breaking 72 days.

Thomas Hardy founded the London Corresponding Society to seek a "radical reform of parliament", later influencing the reform movements of early-19th-century England.

Port Egmont, the first British colony in the Falkland Islands, was founded.

Privateer Amaro Pargo was declared a hidalgo, a member of the Spanish nobility.

English colonists from the Province of Carolina and their native allies began a series of raids against the largely peaceful population of Apalachee in Spanish Florida.

Anne Boleyn (depicted), already pregnant with the future Elizabeth I, secretly married Henry VIII of England in the second of his six marriages.

Francis I, a great-great-grandson of Charles V, was crowned king of France in the Reims Cathedral.