On This Day

Today in History, March 25th

On March 25, 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist fire killed 146 garment workers in New York. Plus the Treaty of Rome and Robert the Bruce's crowning.

By Today in History Updated November 10, 2026 3 min read Sources checked

Published March 25, 2026 · Last updated November 10, 2026

March 25 is best known for 1911, when fire swept through the Triangle Shirtwaist Company in New York City and killed 146 garment workers, most of them young immigrant women. The date also saw six European nations sign the Treaty of Rome in 1957 and Robert the Bruce crowned king of Scots in 1306.

The big story: The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire (1911)

On a Saturday afternoon, March 25, 1911, a fire started in a rag bin on the eighth floor of the Asch Building in lower Manhattan. The Triangle Shirtwaist Company filled the top three floors, and about 600 people were at work, most of them teenage immigrant women. Getting out was nearly impossible. One stairway door was locked from the outside to stop theft, and the other opened inward. Only one of four elevators was running. The flimsy fire escape could hold just a few people, and fire ladders reached only the seventh floor. The blaze was out in about half an hour, but 146 people were dead. The owners, Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, escaped across the roof and were later acquitted of manslaughter. Public outrage did what the trial did not. About 80,000 people joined a union march less than two weeks later, and New York passed a new fire prevention law that October.

More events on March 25

Year	What happened
1306	Robert the Bruce was crowned king of Scots at Scone. Eight years later he beat the English at Bannockburn.
1634	English colonists aboard the Ark and the Dove landed at St. Clement’s Island and began the colony of Maryland, planned as a haven for persecuted Catholics (Old Style date).
1941	Yugoslavia’s prime minister signed the Tripartite Pact in Vienna, joining the Axis. His government was overthrown two days later.
1957	France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg signed the Treaty of Rome, creating the European Economic Community, or Common Market.
1957	U.S. Customs in San Francisco seized 520 copies of Allen Ginsberg’s Howl and Other Poems as obscene. A later trial ended in acquittal for publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
1967	Martin Luther King Jr. led about 5,000 people in an antiwar march in Chicago, calling the Vietnam War a blasphemy against American ideals.
1969	Newlyweds John Lennon and Yoko Ono began their first “bed-in” for peace at the Amsterdam Hilton, taking press interviews in pajamas for a week.
1975	King Faisal of Saudi Arabia was shot dead in Riyadh by his nephew. His motives remain unclear.
2021	Beverly Cleary, author of the Ramona and Henry Huggins books, died in Carmel, California, at 104.

Born on March 25

1881: Béla Bartók, Hungarian composer and collector of folk music.
1934: Gloria Steinem, feminist activist and a founder of Ms. magazine.
1942: Aretha Franklin, the “Queen of Soul,” born in Memphis.
1947: Elton John, born Reginald Dwight, British singer, songwriter and pianist.