27 February History
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.