27 April History
- 1296 - Edward I defeats the Scots at the Battle of Dunbar.
- 1509 - Pope Julius II excommunicates the Italian state of Venice.
- 1565 - The first Spanish settlement in Philippines is established in Cebu City.
- 1773 - British Parliament passes the Tea Act.
- 1746 - King George II wins the battle of Culloden.
- 1813 - American forces capture York (present-day Toronto), the seat of government in Ontario.
- 1861 - President Abraham Lincoln suspends the writ of habeas corpus.
- 1861 - West Virginia secedes from Virginia after Virginia secedes from the Union.
- 1863 - The Army of the Potomac begins marching on Chancellorsville.
- 1865 - The Sultana, a steam-powered riverboat, catches fire and burns after one of its boilers explodes. At least 1,238 of the 2,031 passengers–mostly former Union POWs–are killed.
- 1909 - The Sultan of Turkey, Abdul Hamid II, is overthrown.
- 1937 - German bombers of the Condor Legion devastate Guernica, Spain.
- 1941 - The Greek army capitulates to the invading Germans.
- 1950 - South Africa passes the Group Areas Act, formally segregating races.
- 1961 - The United Kingdom grants Sierra Leone independence.
- 1975 - Saigon is encircled by North Vietnamese troops.
- 1978 - The Afghanistan revolution begins.
- 1989 - Protesting students take over Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China.
27 April Birthdays
- 1737 - Edward Gibbon, historian (The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire).
- 1791 - Samuel F.B. Morse, inventor of the telegraph and the code.
- 1822 - Ulysses S. Grant, Union general during the American Civil War, 18th President of the United States (1869-1877).
- 1840 - Edward Whymper, the first man to climb the Matterhorn.
- 1900 - Walter Lantz, cartoonist, creator of Woody Woodpecker.
- 1904 - Cecil Day-Lewis, Irish poet, father of actor Daniel Day-Lewis.
- 1927 - Coretta Scott King, civil rights activist, wife of Martin Luther King, Jr.