World roundup: October 24 2025

Stories from the Philippines, Ivory Coast, Colombia, and elsewhere

TODAY IN HISTORY

October 24, 1648: The Peace of Westphalia (mostly) ends the Thirty Years’ War. The settlement—which took the form of two treaties, the Treaty of Münster between the Holy Roman Emperor and France and the Treaty of Osnabrück between the Holy Roman Emperor and Sweden—reinforced the idea that the Emperor could not impose religious terms on the empire’s constituent states but also repudiated the idea that state sovereigns had the right to compel their subjects to adopt said sovereign’s chosen religion. It also made Calvinism a legally recognized variant of Christianity and established the legal equality of Catholics and Lutherans. Many IR scholars credit Westphalia with reifying the concept of national sovereignty, with its emphasis on the sanctity of national borders and the principle of non-interference in domestic affairs—hence the term “Westphalian sovereignty.”

Dutch painter Gerard ter Borch’s 1648 The Ratification of the Spanish-Dutch Treaty of Münster (Wikimedia Commons)

October 24, 1912: In the same day, the Ottoman Empire suffers two decisive defeats, one to a Bulgarian army in the Battle of Kirk Kilisse in modern Turkey and the other to a Serbian army in the Battle of Kumanovo in modern North Macedonia. The simultaneous defeats set the tone for the First Balkan War, which had begun on October 8 and would end in May 1913 with a decisive victory for the Balkan League (Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro, and Serbia). The Bulgarian victory at Kirk Kilisse gave its armies an open path to Istanbul, though in two battles at Çatalca (on the outskirts of the city) in November and then in February-April, the Ottomans were able first to stop and then to rout the Bulgarian offensive. Thus, although they lost the war, the Ottomans were able to defend their capital and preserve what was left of their empire.

MIDDLE EAST

LEBANON

The Israeli military (IDF) killed at least two people in a drone strike in southern Lebanon’s Nabatieh province on Friday. Israeli officials later claimed to have killed a Hezbollah “logistics commander” in the attack. The IDF continues to bomb Lebanon on essentially a daily basis, 11 months into its nominal ceasefire with Hezbollah.