On February 25

Hong Kong–based writer and publisher Gui Minhai, known for writing about Chinese Communist Party politicians, was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment for intelligence violations.

At their headquarters in Pilkhana, members of the Bangladesh Rifles began a mutiny that resulted in 82 deaths.

Israeli physician Baruch Goldstein opened fire on Palestinian Muslims praying at the mosque in Hebron's Cave of the Patriarchs, killing 29 people and wounding 125 others.

Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos and his wife Imelda were ousted from power by the non-violent People Power Revolution, with Corazon Aquino succeeding as president.

The first prime minister of independent Suriname, Henck Arron (pictured), was deposed in a military coup led by Dési Bouterse.

In a speech to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev denounced the personality cult and dictatorship of his predecessor Joseph Stalin.

After being postponed due to World War II, the inaugural edition of the Pan American Games opened in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Fearful of civil war and Soviet intervention in recent unrest, President Edvard Beneš (pictured) ceded control of the government to the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia.

USS Ranger (pictured), the United States Navy's first purpose-built aircraft carrier, was launched.

Mississippi senator Hiram Rhodes Revels became the first African American to be seated in the U.S. Congress.

Miners in Calaveras County, California, discovered a human skull that was taken to show that humans had existed during the Pliocene, a thesis that was later disproved.

Royal Navy captain Lord George Paulet began a five-month occupation of the Hawaiian Islands.

George Frideric Handel's opera Nero premiered in Hamburg.

Khosrow II, the last great king of the Sasanian Empire, was overthrown by his son Kavad II.

Roman emperor Hadrian adopted Antoninus Pius as his son and successor following the death of Hadrian's first adopted son Lucius Aelius.