Today in History: Thursday, October 25, 2012

On Oct. 25, 1962, U.S. ambassador Adlai E. Stevenson presented photographic evidence of Soviet missile bases in Cuba to the U.N. Security Council.

1400 Author Geoffrey Chaucer died in London.

1760 Britain's King George III succeeded his late grandfather, George II.

1854 The English suffered heavy losses against Russia in the Battle of Balaclava during the Crimean War. The battle inspired Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem "Charge of the Light Brigade."

1881 Artist Pablo Picasso was born in Malaga, Spain..

1962 Author John Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature.

1971 The U.N. General Assembly voted to admit mainland China and expel Taiwan.

1983 A U.S.-led force invaded Grenada at the order of President Ronald Reagan, who said the action was needed to protect U.S. citizens there.

1994 Susan Smith of Union, S.C., claimed that a black carjacker had driven off with her two sons. She later confessed to drowning the children and was convicted of murder.

2001 Microsoft released the Windows XP operating system.

2002 Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., 58, was killed in a plane crash in northern Minnesota.

2003 Florida State's Bobby Bowden became the winningest coach in major college football history with his 339th victory as the Seminoles beat Wake Forest 48-24.

2005 U.S. military deaths in Iraq reached 2,000.