27 February History


Month:                           Date:     

  • 425    -    Theodosius effectively founds a university in Constantinople.
  • 1531    -    German Protestants form the League of Schmalkalden to resist the power of the emperor.
  • 1700    -    The Pacific Island of New Britain is discovered.
  • 1814    -    Napoleon's Marshal Nicholas Oudinot is pushed back at Barsur-Aube by the Emperor's allied enemies shortly before his abdication.
  • 1827    -    The first Mardi-Gras celebration is held in New Orleans.
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  • 1864    -    The first Union prisoners arrive at Andersonville Prison in Georgia.
  • 1865    -    Confederate raider William Quantrill and his bushwackers attack Hickman, Kentucky, shooting women and children.
  • 1905    -    The Japanese push Russians back in Manchuria and cross the Sha River.
  • 1908    -    The forty-sixth star is added to the U.S. flag, signifying Oklahoma's admission to statehood.
  • 1920    -    The United States rejects a Soviet peace offer as propaganda.
  • 1925    -    Glacier Bay National Monument is dedicated in Alaska.
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  • 1933    -    The burning down of the Reichstag building in Berlin gives the Nazis the opportunity to suspend personal liberty with increased power.
  • 1939    -    The Supreme Court outlaws sit-down strikes.
  • 1942    -    British Commandos raid a German radar station at Bruneval on the French coast.
  • 1953    -    F-84 Thunderjets raid North Korean base on Yalu River.
  • 1962    -    South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem is unharmed as two planes bomb the presidential palace in Saigon.
  • 1963    -    The Soviet Union says that 10,000 troops will remain in Cuba.
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  • 1969    -    Thousands of students protest President Richard Nixon's arrival in Rome.
  • 1973    -    U.S. Supreme Court rules that a Virginia pool club can't bar residents because of color.
  • 1988    -    Debi Thomas becomes the first African American to win a medal at the Winter Olympics.
  • 1991    -    Coalition forces liberate Kuwait after seven months of occupation by the Iraqi army.

  • 27 February Birthdays

  • 1807    -    Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, American poet.
  • 1886    -    Hugo Black, U.S. Supreme Court justice.
  • 1888    -    Lotte Lehmann, German opera singer.
  • 1891    -    David Sarnoff, RCA board chairman and a pioneer of U.S. television
  • 1897    -    Marian Anderson, singer.
  • 1902    -    John Steinbeck, American novelist (The Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men).
  • 1904    -    James T. Farrel, author (Young Lonigan).
  • 1910    -    Peter De Vries, writer, poetry editor (Poetry Magazine, The New Yorker).
  • 1912    -    Lawrence Durrell, novelist (The Alexandria Quartet).
  • 1917    -    John Connally, Texas Governor, wounded in the assassination of President John Kennedy.
  • 1930    -    Joanne Woodward, actress (Rachel, Rachel, The Three Faces of Eve).
  • 1932    -    Elizabeth Taylor, actress (Cleopatra, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?).
  • 1934    -    Ralph Nader, consumer advocate.