On this day... October 25:

On this day...

October 25:  Retrocession Day in Taiwan (1945) 1616 – The Dutch sailing ship Eendracht reachedShark Bay on the western coastline of Australia, as documented on the Hartog Plate etched by explorer Dirk Hartog. 1854 – Crimean War: Lord Cardigan led his cavalry to disaster(pictured) in the Battle of Balaclava. 1924 – The Zinoviev letter, later found to be a forgery, was published in the Daily Mail, helping to ensure the British Labour Party's defeat in the UK general election four days later. 1944 – Heinrich Himmler ordered a crackdown on the Edelweiss Pirates, a nonconformist youth group that assisted army deserters and others hiding from the Nazis. 2001 – Windows XP, one of the most popular and widely used versions of the Microsoft Windows operating system, was released.