April 27: Today in History – Historical Events
Early Centuries – April 27 Historic Events – Before the 1700s
1. 27th April 1296: King Edward I of England defeated the Scotts at the Battle of Dunbar, deposed King John, and exiled him to France.
2. 27th April 1509: the Republic of Venice was excommunicated by Pope Julius II. They however lifted the ban in Feb of 1510.
3. 27th April 1521: The natives in the Philippines killed Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan.
4. 27th April 1565: The first Spanish settlement was established in the Philippines in Cebu City.
5. 27th April 1570: Queen Elizabeth I was today excommunicated by Pope Pious V.
6. 27th April 1646: King Charles I fled Oxford today.
7. 27th April 1650: General Montrose of Scotland was defeated today.
8. 27th April 1662: Today a Treaty of Alliance was signed between the Netherlands and France in Paris.
9. 27th April 1677: Colonel Jeffreys today became the governor of Virginia.
18th Century – What Happened on April 27 – The 1700s
10. 27th April 1768: English journalist John Wilkes was arrested for sedition and libel today after his return from exile in Europe.
11. 27th April 1773: The Tea Act was today passed by the British Parliament.
12. 27th April 1799: General Toussaint L’Ouverture today signed a treaty of friendship with President John Adams of the US in Saint-Domingue. In order not to alienate France, certain elements of the treaty were kept secret.
19th Century – April 27 This Day That Year – The 1800s
13. 27th April 1813: General Zebulon Pike led American forces to capture York, present-day Toronto, the seat of the government in Ontario. Pike was killed.
14. 27th April 1838: Fire broke out today in Charleston. It destroyed almost half of Charleston.
15. 27th April 1848: The slave trade was today abolished in French colonies.
16. 27th April 1849: “Garibaldi” the Italian revolutionary who returned with his family to Italy from Uruguay in 1848, took control of the defenses of Rome.
17. 27th April 1857: The establishment of the Jewish congregation in lower Austria was prohibited.
18. 27th April 1859: “Pomona” sank in the northern Atlantic. All 400 on board drowned.
19. 27th April 1860: The command of Harps Ferry was today assigned to Thomas J. Jackson.
20. 27th April 1861: President Abraham Lincoln today suspended the writ of habeas corpus.
21. 27th April 1861: After Virginia seceded from the Union, West Virginia seceded from Virginia.
22. 27th April 1863: The army of Potomac began marching on Chancellorsville.
23. 27th April 1865: John Wilkes Booth was today killed by the Federal Cavalry in Virginia.
24. 27th April 1865: One of the boilers of the Streamer Sultana exploded and the streamer caught fire on the Mississippi River near Memphis. More than 1400 paroled Union prisoners on their way home were killed.
25. 27th April 1870: Heinrich Schliemann discovered Troy.
26. 27th April 1877: President Hayes removed Federal troops from Los Angeles. Reconstruction ended.
27. 27th April 1881: Pogroms against Russian Jews were started in Elisabeth Grad.
28. 27th April 1886: Three American citizens were killed today when a band of Apaches led by Geronimo attacked a ranch west of Fort Huachuca.
29. 27th April 1897: Grant’s Tomb was dedicated.
20th Century – Important Events On This Day April 27th – The 1900s
30. 27th April 1909: In Turkey, the brother of Sultan Abdulhamid II, Reshad Efendi, was today proclaimed Sultan Mehmed V.
31. 27th April 1913: The Knights of Lithuania was today established to unite Lithuanian youth living in America and preserve the culture of Lithuania’
32. 27th April 1920: Leader of Pogrom Petlgoera declared independence of Ukraine.
33. 27th April 1927: After 10 days in jail actress Mae West who was arrested with her co-actors and producers when their comedy-drama “Sex” caused a scandal was released today.
34. 27th April 1932: American poet Hart Crane drowned after jumping from a streamer en route to New York.
35. 27th April 1935: In an act establishing the Soil Conservation Service in the Department of Agriculture the US Congress had declared soil erosion a natural menace.
36. 27th April 1936: Joseph “Dutch” Bowers, said to be the first man to attempt an escape from the Alcatraz prison was shot by a guard while climbing a fence and fell 70 feet to his death.
37. 27th April 1937: The Franklin Roosevelt administration in the United States started distributing social security cheques.
38. 27th April 1937: In Spain, the German bombers of the Condor Legion conducted follow-up raids at Guernica.
39. 27th April 1938: King George of Albania married Geraldine Apponyi of Hungry today.
40. 27th April 1941: The Greek army today catapulted to the Germans and Hitler secured Greece and the Greek Islands.
41. 27th April 1942: The first convoy of Japanese detainees arrived at the Tanforan detention center south of San Francisco. After 169 days the detainees were transferred to relocation camps.
42. 27th April 1942: A tornado today destroyed Pryor in Oklahoma, killing 100 and injuring another 300.
43. 27th April 1942: Jews in Belgium were forced to wear stars.
44. 27th April 1944: Dr. H. Corwin Hinshaw, first treated four tuberculosis-infected guinea pigs with the newly developed antibiotic streptomycin and cured them.
45. 27th April 1945: Mussolini was today captured by Italian partisans.
46. 27th April 1945: The U.S. Fifth Army entered Genoa today.
47. 27th April 1946: Radar was installed on a commercial ship for the first time today.
48. 27th April 1950: The Group Areas Act, formally segregating races was passed by South Africa today.
49. 27th April 1953: President Eisenhower signed Executive Order #10450 stipulating security requirements for government employment. It even listed sexual perversion as a condition for firing a federal employee.
50. 27th April 1955: Pending an investigation of 7-14 cases of children inoculated with Cutter Laboratories Salk vaccine, the U.S. government suspended the use of the vaccine manufactured by that company in Berkeley, California.
51. 27th April 1956: Light heavyweight boxing champion Rocky Marciano announced his retirement today.
52. 27th April 1959: The U.S. State Department today announced that small arms stored in the Canal Zone will be made available to the Panamanian forces to repel Cuban invaders.
53. 27th April 1959: In the wake of the Great Leap Forward, Liu Shaoqi was named president of China.
54. 27th April 1960: The first atomic-powered Electric-driven submarine was launched at Tullibee today.
55. 27th April 1960: President of France General Charles de Gaulle flew into San Francisco today. He was accorded a welcome with a 21-gun salute and was greeted by 2,50,000 people along the downtown motorcade.
56. 27th April 1960: Togo, a UN Trust territory under French administration gained independence today. Sylvanus Olympio became its first chief of state.
57. 27th April 1960: Syngman Rhee, president of South Korea, resigned after his government was toppled. Parliament began an investigation into summary executions during the 1950-53 war.
58. 27th April 1961: Sierra Leone was on this day granted independence by the United Kingdom.
59. 27th April 1962: The US performed an atmospheric nuclear test at Christian Island.
60. 27th April 1963: Premier Fidel Castro arrived in Moscow today.
61. 27th April 1963: Marvin L. Sheldon a real estate developer in San Francisco said that he does not want negroes in any of the houses he has built in Golden Gate Heights. He is said to have rejected an offer of $39,950 by Wilt Chamberlin for a home.
62. 27th April 1965: “Pampers” a disposable diaper was patented by R.C. Duncan today.
63. 27th April 1967: US performs nuclear test at its Nevada Test Site.
64. 27th April 1967: Canadian Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson today officially opened Expo ’67 in Montreal Canada.
65. 27th April 1968: The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association held a rally to protest the banning of the Republican Easter Parade.
66. 27th April 1968: In the Netherlands, the Political Party of Radicals was formed by a group of Catholic Radicals who left their party to form a political party. This party however was dissolved in 1991.
67. 27th April 1969: The helicopter in which the military president of Bolivia General Rene Barrientos was traveling crashed killing the president.
68. 27th April 1971: In South Korea Park’s dictatorship was seriously challenged by Kim Dae-jung, who nearly defeated Park in the presidential election. After this election Park revised the constitution to ensure his victory in future elections.
69. 27th April 1972: The opposition party in Germany, taking advantage of the crumbling majority in the ruling coalition, moved a no-confidence motion against Willy-Brandt. The motion was defeated and Brandt remained the Chancellor.
70. 27th April 1972: Apollo 16 returned to earth today.
71. 27th April 1973: L. Patrick Gray, the acting Director of the FBI today resigned after it was revealed that he had handed over the bureau files about Watergate burglary to the Nixon White House.
72. 27th April 1974: A Pan Am 707 crashed into the mountains of Bali killing 107 people.
73. 27th April 1975: North Vietnamese troops encircled Saigon. The downtown civilian areas were bombed by the North Vietnamese Army leading to chaos and widespread looting.
74. 27th April 1975: USSR today performed a nuclear test at Eastern Kazak/Semipalitinsk USSR.
75. 27th April 1976: The Arabic Monitory Fund was established today in Abu Dhabi
76. 27th April 1976: Jimmy Carter today clinched the Democratic Presidential Nomination defeating Henry Jackson and Morris Udall in the Pennsylvania primaries.
77. 27th April 1977: In an air disaster in Guatemala City 28 people were killed.
78. 27th April 1978: Fifty-one construction workers plunged to their deaths in West Virginia when the scaffolding inside a cooling tower at the Nuclear Pleasants Power Plant fell 168 feet to the ground.
79. 27th April 1978: John D. Ehrlichman, a defendant who was convicted in the Watergate case was today released from the Arizona prison after serving 18 months.
80. 27th April 1978:
81. 27th April 1981: The computer mouse was introduced today by Xerox PARC.
82. 27th April 1981: The NASL appointed the first female soccer official today.
83. 27th April 1982: The trial of John W. Hinckley Jr. who unsuccessfully attempted to assassinate President Regan began today.
84. 27th April 1984: Over 70” of snow falls on Red Lake Montana.
85. 27th April 1986: A day after the Chernobyl nuclear accident, Soviet authorities ordered evacuation of Pripyat.
86. 27th April 1987: Austrian Chancellor Kurt Waldheim was barred from entering the US by the Justice Department due to his aid of Nazi Germany during World War II.
87. 27th April 1989: A hurricane struck Bangladesh killing about 500 people.
88. 27th April 1989: Mandatory seat belt law comes into effect in Italy today.
89. 27th April 1989: Beijing students take over Tiananmen Square in China.
90. 27th April 1992: The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, comprising Serbia and Montenegro was proclaimed today.
91. 27th April 1992: In its history of 700 years, the British House of Commons, for the first time elected a woman speaker when it elected Betty Boothroyd as speaker.
92. 27th April 1993: 76 people were killed when the Afghan Antonov AN-32 crashed at Tashqurgan.
93. 27th April 1994: Freedom Day: Today is day 2 of South Africa’s multi-racial election and most voted. Some people stood in the queue for 10 hours.
21st Century – April 27 This Day In History – The 2000s
94. 27th April 2002: The last successful telemetry from NASA to space probe Pioneer 10.
95. 27th April 2005: The Airbus A308, a Superjumbo jet aircraft makes its first flight from Toulouse in France.
96. 27th April 2006: Construction on the Freedom Tower for the new World Trade Center in New York City began today.
97. 27th April 2007: Amid political controversy with Russia, Estonian authorities today removed the Bronze Soldier, a Soviet Red Army War Memorial in Tallinn.
98. 27th April 2011: President Barack Obama of the United States today publicly released his birth certificate after being coerced by incessant false “birther” accusations.
99. 27th April 2012: In Dnipropetrovsk in Ukraine four explosions killed 27 people.
100. 27th April 2013: A bomb attack in Karachi Pakistan killed 10 people and 25 others were injured.
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