Famous Events For May 27 – Today In History

May 27: Today in History – Historical Events

Early Centuries – May 27 Historic Events – Before the 1700s

1. 27th May 1120: Just two weeks before he met his untimely death, Richard III of Capua was anointed as prince.
2. 27th May 1328: In France crowning of King Philip VI Valois took place today.
3. 27th May 1525: Leader and head of the German peasant revolution 28-year-old Thomas Muntzer was beheaded today. Over 150,000 peasants died in the uprising.

4. 27th May 1529: In Hungary, 30 Jews of Posing were charged with blood ritual, and were buried at stake.
5. 27th May 1647: Achsah Young, was today executed for being a “witch” in Salem in Massachusetts. She was the first on record for having been executed thus.
6. 27th May 1647: Scottish politician Archibald Campbell was beheaded today.
7. 27th May 1660: The Treaty of Copenhagen to end the Second Northern War was today signed by Denmark and Sweden.
8. 27th May 1668: Massachusetts expelled three colonists today for being Baptists.
9. 27th May 1679: The Habeas Corpus Act, to prevent false arrest and imprisonment, was today passed by the House of Lords in England.
10. 27th May 1692: The Governor of Massachusetts established the Court of Oyer and Terminer(To hear and to determine, to hear accusations of witchcraft.

18th Century – What Happened on May 27 – The 1700s

11. 27th May 1703: Leningrad or St. Petersburg was today founded as the capital of Russia by Peter the Great. It was built on a swampy settlement ceded by Sweden and was occupied by about 150 people.
12. 27th May 1738: In Eastern Europe Turkish troops today occupied Ochakov and Orsova.
13. 27th May 1796: The Piano was today patented by James S. McLean.
14. 27th May 1798: In Wexford in Ireland, the Battle of Oulart Hill took place today.

19th Century – May 27 This Day That Year – The 1800s

15. 27th May 1813: Fort George in Canada was today captured by the Americans.
16. 27th May 1849: Today the Great Hall at the Euston station in London was opened.
17. 27th May 1850: Tornado destroyed the Mormon Temple in Nauvoo Illinois.

18. 27th May 1856: In Safford in England, Doctor William Palmer was today found guilty of poisoning.
19. 27th May 1863: In Georgia, 18 people were killed when CSS Chattahoochee exploded on the Chattahoochee River.
20. 27th May 1873: The first horse race “Preakness” was held at Pimlico Md. Was held today. “Kalitan” owned by Edward R. Bradley was the first winner.
21. 27th May 1896: A tornado struck St Louis, Missouri which killed about 255 people.

20th Century – Important Events On This Day May 27th – The 1900s

22. 27th May 1905: The Russian East Sea fleet in the Straits of Tsushima was today destroyed by the Japanese fleet.
23. 27th May 1907: In San Francisco, the Bubonic plague broke out again.
24. 27th May 1921: After 84 years of British control, Afghanistan achieved sovereignty today.

25. 27th May 1922: In the USA Banks have decided to issue cheques only to customers of good standing in the wake of the increased number of issuing fraudulent checks resulting in arrests in the recent past.
26. 27th May 1923: Andre Lagache and Renee Leonard today won the first Le Mans 24-Hour race covering a distance of 1,372.928 mines in a Chenard-Walker car.
27. 27th MAY 1927: An earthquake struck the Qinghai(Xining) province in China leaving about 200,000 people dead.
28. 27th May 1927: “Indiana Harbor” the cargo Steamer ran aground on the northern California Humboldt coast today.
29. 27th May 1930: The masking tape was invented today by Richard Drew.
30. 27th May 1931: The first flight into the stratosphere by a balloon was made today by Piccard and Knipfr.
31. 27th May 1933: In order to monitor and regulate stocks and bonds, the US Federal Securities Act was passed today.
32. 27th May 1935: The US Supreme Court ruled President Roosevelt’s National Industrial Recovery Act as unconstitutional, in the Schechter Poultry Corp. V. United States case.
33. 27th May 1936: RMS Queen Mary, the Luxury liner left Southampton on her maiden voyage to New York. There were over 1800 passengers on board.

34. 27th May 1937: Over 200,000 pedestrians walked across the Golden Gate Bridge connecting San Francisco and Main County, California when the bridge was opened today.
35. 27th May 1941: Bismarck, the German battleship was sunk on this day in the Atlantic by the Royal Naval Ships. It had earlier been damaged by torpedoes dropped by British aircraft from HMS Ark Royal.
36. 27th May 1941: President Roosevelt proclaimed an “unlimited national emergency” amid rising world tensions.
37. 27th May 1942: Czech commandos today killed Nazi overlord and SS general Reinhard Heydrich in Prague.
38. 27th May 1942: General Erwin Rommel of Germany began a major offensive in Libya with his Afrika Korps.
39. 27th May 1943: Hungarian Laszlo Biro today patented the ballpoint pen in America.
40. 27th May 1943: There was a secret meeting of French resistance members under Jean Moulin in Paris today.
41. 27th May 1944: In Hangzhou in China, the Japanese advanced today.
42. 27th May 1944: Gen. MacArthur lands on Biak Island in New Guinea.

43. 27th May 1948: The Jewish synagogue Hurvat Rabbi Yehudah he-Hasid was today blown up by the Arabs.
44. 27th May 1949:Train traffic, to and from West Berlin was stopped by the Russians today.
45. 27th May 1950: American singer Frank Sinatra made a TV debut on “Star-Spangled Review” of the NBC. He became the most successful and popular figure in music history.
46. 27th May 1951: The Dalai Lama was forced to surrender his army to Beijing by the Chinese Communists.
47. 27th May 1955: Tories led by Sir Antony Eden won the British General Elections today.
48. 27th May 1956: The French carried out an air raid in Algiers today.
49. 27th May 1958: Earnest Green graduated from Little Rocks Central High School today along with 600 whites. Green was the first black Central High graduate.
50. 27th May 1960: In Turkey 37 young officers organized a military coup and deposed the government PM Menderes who was arrested along with all the leading party members.
51. 27th May 1963: Jomo Kenyatta is slated to become Kenya’s first premier after his pryty “The Kenya African National Union” won the country’s first general election.
52. 27th May 1964: The premier show of “From Russia With Love” was held in US today.
53. 27th May 1966: There was a crash of French fighters over Spain.

54. 27th May 1967: In Australia, a referendum to amend the constitution to allow the federal government to make laws for indigenous Australians and to include them in the national census was approved today. The referendum became law later in August.
55. 27th May 1968: To remember those who laid down their lives in the service of the country Memorial Day is celebrated today. The last Monday of the month was set aside in 1968 for this.
56. 27th May 1969: In Florida, work on the construction of Walt Disney World began today.
57. 27th May 1970: The USSR today performed a nuclear test (underground).
58. 27th May 1970: Today the 10th highest summit in the world, the south face of Nepal’s “Annapurna I” was climbed by Dougal Haston and Don Whillans, members of the British expedition.
59. 27th May 1974: Valerie Giscard d’Estaing assumed office as President of France today and nominated Jacques Chirac as his Prime Minister.
60. 27th May 1977: George H. Willing (human fly) was today fined $1.10. He was fined one penny for each of the 110 stories of the World Trade Center he scaled the previous day.
61. May 1980: The people’s uprising in Gwangju in South Korea was today brought to an end by the South Korean police. Nearly 2000 people were killed. It was simply called 5.18 referring to the starting date.

62. 27th May 1985: Representatives from Britain and China today exchanged instruments of ratification of the pact to return Hong Kong to China in 1997, in a brief ceremony in Beijing.
63. 27th May 1988: The US Senate voted 93-5 to ratify a treaty eliminating medium-range nuclear missiles, two days before the start of the Moscow summit.
64. 27th May 1990: In Burma’s (Myanmar’s) first free multi-party election in three decades, the political opposition of Burma scored a victory. The military rulers after allowing democratic elections, ignored the results when the National League of Aung San Suu Kyi won 392 of the 485 seats contested.
65. 27th May 1990: In a hastily scheduled television address, Soviet president Mikhail S. Gorbachev tried to calm the nation’s economic nerves. The first political meetings were held in Moscow by the radical Democratic Party.
66. 27th May 1991: In Ethiopia, in the face of a rebel advance, the Ethiopian troops were ordered to lay down their arms. In the rebel war, about 60,000 Eritreans died in Ethiopia.
67. 27th May 1992: In order to stop its interference in Bosnia-Herzegovina, a trade sanction was imposed on Serbia by the 12-nation European community.
68. 27th May 1993: A massive deficit-reduction, tax-increase bill was approved today by the US House of Representatives by a vote of 219-213.
69. 27th May 1993: The North American Free Trade Agreement was today approved by the Canadian House of Commons.
70. 27th May 1993: In a car bomb attack on the Uffizi museum in Florence Italy, believed to have been led by Giovanni Brusca, five people were killed and three dozen paintings were ruined or damaged.
71. 27th May 1994: The dissident Noble Prize-winning author Alexander Solzhenitsyn of Russia, who was living in the USA in exile, returned to Russia after 20 years of exile.
72. 27th May 1995: During a jumping event in Charlottesville Virginia, actor Christopher Reeve of Superman Movies fame was paralyzed when he was thrown from his horse.
73. 27th May 1996: The ruling democrats in Albania were accused by the opposition parties of election irregularities and the opposition parties pulled out of the election process.

74. 27th May 1996: The military militias completed their withdrawal from Monrovia, in Liberia today.
75. 27th May 1997: Texas was today struck by an F5 tornado with wind speeds greater than 260 MPH resulting in the destruction of the town and death of 27 people.
76. 27th May 1998: With a view to stave off a run on the ruble and to establish some economic stability, Russia tripled its interest rates to 150% today.
77. 27th May 1999: The war crimes tribunal in Hague indicted Slobodan Milosevic for crimes against humanity and genocide. It held the Yugoslav president personally responsible for the horrors in Kosovo.

21st Century – May 27 This Day In History – The 2000s

78. 27th May 2000: Scottish farmers, who had planted genetically modified Rapeseed by chance, were advised by MAFF to dig up the crop as genetically modified products cannot be marketed within Europe. They are now seeking compensation from Advanta who had provided the seed.
79. 27th May 2001: President Wahid of Indonesia threatened to declare a state of emergency if impeachment proceedings begin.
80. 27th May 2002: Britain was reported to be considering an “action plan”, confidentially, to radically reduce the influx of asylum seekers.
81. 27th May 2003: At least 430 people are reported to have been killed during the last two weeks due to heat wave conditions in southern India.

82. 27th May 2004: A radical Muslim cleric, Abu Hamza al-Masri was today arrested by the London police on suspicion of helping the deadly 2000 suicide attack on the USS Cole. The US has sought his extradition. He is also accused of trying to build a terrorist training camp in Oregon.
83. 27th May 2005: Over eighteen people were killed and about fifty others were injured in Pakistan when a suicide bomber attacked the Bar Imam Shrine outside Islamabad where hundreds of Shia Muslims had gathered.
84. 27th May 2006: An earthquake of magnitude 6.3 struck Yogyakarta in Indonesia killing an estimated 5,800 people and rendering about 1.5 million people homeless.
85. 27th May 2007: It was announced by the government in Kuwait that with effect from September 1st, the weekend is being shifted from Thursday and Friday to Friday and Saturday.
86. 27th May 2008: In China, the aftershock of the May 12th earthquake, of magnitude 5.7 struck once again destroying 420,000 more homes. The official death toll is 67.183 with 20,000 reported missing.
87. 27th May 2009: The Sri Lankan government troops today killed 11 suspected guerrillas in the eastern jungles which is where rebel holdouts are said to be entrenched.
88. 27th May 2009: Russia today launched a space capsule with Canadian Bob Thirsk, Russian Roman Romanenko, and Belgian Frank De Winne from Kazakhstan for a two-day journey to the ISS.
89. 27th May 2010: In an attack on a military vehicle in the southern province of Daleh, a Yemeni soldier was killed and four others were wounded. Separatist militants were blamed for the attack by the Provincial officials.
90. 27th May 2011: South African scientists are reported to have found a new species of cockroach at Cape Town’s Table Mountain National Park, which is the world’s only jumping cockroach.
91. 27th May 2012: In a remote-controlled bomb attack on a police van in Pakistan, three passersby were killed and six others were injured.
92. 27th May 2012: In Casablanca Morocco, tens of thousands of people were angry that Prime Minister Benkirane had failed to deliver reforms after the government assumed office in January.
93. 27th May 2013: Gunmen abducted South African citizens, Pierre Korkie (56) and his wife in Taiz in Yemen. Police claim that lawmaker Abdel-Hamid el-Batra has engineered the kidnapping to put pressure on the government to hand over a disputed piece of land.
94. 27th May 2013: In protest over poor prison conditions in Vietnam, legal scholar CuHuy Ha Vu began a hunger strike today.
95. 27th May 2013: The Romanian town of Clinceni laid its claim for the Guinness World Record for the largest flag ever made. The flag measures 1,145 feet by 744 feet. It weighs 5 tons, occupies seven acres of field, and uses an estimated 34 miles of thread for making.
96. 27th May 2014: In northern Yemen, clashes between the two sides were renewed when Shiite rebels attacked army positions and killed 5 soldiers.
97. 27th May 2014: In Syria, 22 people were killed in the eastern districts of Ha Qatanch, Tariq al-Bab, Bustan al-Qasr, Bani Zeid, Mghayer, and Lairamoun by government barrel bombs.
98. 27th May 2014: Sixteen members of an extended family were killed in Pakistan when a truck veered off a narrow road and fell into the Swat River.
99. 27th May 2014: The security services of Norway said three men with alleged links with al-Qaida have been arrested for supporting and participating in terror organizations.
100. 27th May 2014: Florida’s IQ law on capital punishment was today struck down by the US Supreme Court, saying the IQ score cut-off was too rigid to decide which mentally disabled individuals must be spared the death penalty.

See Also:

Sun Signs Everything Under The Sun!