TODAY IN HISTORY - June 25

Reuters

Following are some of the major events to have occurred on June 25:

1950 - North Korea invaded South Korea, heralding the beginning of the Korean War.

1975 - Mozambique became independent and Samora Machel was sworn in as president after 477 years of Portuguese rule.

1991 - Croatia and Slovenia declared independence from Yugoslavia, plunging the federation into a violent breakup.

1996 - A bomb blast tore through a Saudi Arabian military complex housing foreigners in the eastern city of al-Khobar, killing 19 Americans and injuring nearly 400.

1997 - The French oceanographer Jacques-Yves Cousteau, who popularised underwater exploration with prize-winning films, died aged 87.

1998 - World's first consumer copy of Microsoft Windows 98 sold in Sydney.

2001 - Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid started a visit to Australia, the first in 26 years, heralding a new era in relations between the two countries.

2002 - A 45-day countdown for 3,000 white Zimbabwean farmers to abandon their land began, but many vowed to defy President Robert Mugabe's "fast-track" land seizure programme.

2002 - WorldCom Inc, the second biggest U.S. long-distance telecoms group, fired its Chief Financial Officer Scott Sullivan and disclosed it had inflated its profits over five years by $3.8 billion.

2005 - Ultra-conservative Tehran mayor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad swept to a stunning landslide in Iran's presidential run-off against former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

2009 - Pop star Michael Jackson died.