27 December History
- 1512 - The laws of Burgos give New World natives legal protection against abuse and authorize Negro slavery.
- 1831 - HMS Beagle, with Charles Darwin on board, departs from Plymouth. It will eventually visit the Galapagos Islands where Darwin will form his theories on evolution.
- 1862 - Union General William Rosecrans' army begins moving slowly toward Murfreesboro.
- 1913 - Charles Moyer, president of the Miners Union, is shot in the back and dragged through the streets of Chicago.
- 1915 - In Ohio, iron and steel workers go on strike for an eight-hour day and higher wages.
- 1932 - Radio City Music Hall opens.
- 1933 - Josef Stalin calls tensions with Japan a grave danger.
- 1939 - A series of vicious earthquakes take 11,000 lives in Turkey.
- 1941 - Japanese bombers attack Manila, despite its claim as an open city.
- 1944 - General George S. Patton's Third Army, spearheaded by the 4th Armored Division, relieves the surrounded city of Bastogne in Belgium.
- 1945 - The International Monetary Fund and the Bank for Reconstruction and Development are created.
- 1947 - The new Italian constitution is promulgated in Rome.
- 1950 - The United States and Spain resume relations for the first time since the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s.
- 1956 - Segregation on buses in Tallahassee, Florida is outlawed.
- 1968 - The United States agrees to sell F-4 Phantom jets to Israel.
- 1979 - President Hafizullah Amin of Afghanistan is ousted and murdered in a coup backed by the Soviet Union, beginning a war that will last more than 10 years.
- 1983 - President Reagan takes all responsibility for the lack of security in Beirut that allowed a terrorist on a suicide mission to kill 241 Marines.
- 1984 - Four Polish officers are tried for the slaying of Reverend Jerzy Popieluszko.
27 December Birthdays
- 1571 - Johannes Kepler, German astronomer and mathematician.
- 1822 - Louis Pasteur, French chemist and microbiologist.
- 1829 - Hinton Helper, southern abolitionist who wrote The Impending Crisis.
- 1901 - Marlene Dietrich, German-born singer and actress.
- 1943 - Cokie Roberts, American broadcast journalist.