27 August History
- 1626 - The Danes are crushed by the Catholic League in Germany, marking the end of Danish intervention in European wars.
- 1776 - The Americans are defeated by the British at the Battle of Long Island, New York.
- 1793 - Maximilien Robespierre is elected to the Committee of Public Safety in Paris, France.
- 1813 - The Allies defeat Napoleon at the Battle of Dresden.
- 1861 - Union troops make an amphibious landing at Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.
- 1862 - As the Second Battle of Bull Run rages, Confederate soldiers attack Loudoun County, Virginia.
- 1881 - New York state's Pure Food Law goes into effect to prevent "the adulteration of food or drugs."
- 1894 - The United States congress passes an income tax law as part of a general tariff act, but it is found unconstitutional.
- 1910 - Thomas Edison demonstrates the first "talking" pictures–using a phonograph–in his New Jersey laboratory.
- 1912 - Edgar Rice Burrough's Tarzan of the Apes first appears in a magazine.
- 1916 - Italy declares war on Germany.
- 1928 - Fifteen nations sign the Kellogg-Briand Peace Pact, outlawing war and calling for the settlement of disputes through arbitration. Forty-seven other countries eventually sign the pact.
- 1941 - The Prime Minister of Japan, Fumimaro Konoye, issues an invitation for a meeting with President Roosevelt.
- 1945 - B-29 Superfortress bombers begin to drop supplies into Allied prisoner of war camps in China.
- 1963 - Cambodia severs ties with South Vietnam.
- 1979 - Lord Mountbatten is killed by an Irish terrorist bomb in his sail boat in Sligo, Ireland.
- 1989 - Chuck Berry performs his tune Johnny B. Goode for NASA staff in celebration of Voyager II's encounter with the planet Neptune.
27 August Birthdays
- 1770 - George William Hegel, German idealist philosopher.
- 1871 - Theodore Dreiser, novelist (Sister Carrie).
- 1899 - C.S. Forester, novelist and author of the Horatio Hornblower series.
- 1908 - Lyndon B. Johnson, 36th president of the United States (1963-1969).
- 1910 - Mother Teresa, founder of the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta and Nobel Peace Prize winner.